


neutered fruit

by kpkndy



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drug Use, F/M, Pregnancy, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-07-21 19:03:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 63,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7399924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kpkndy/pseuds/kpkndy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Not that it mattered much. He'd probably be a horrible father anyway."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. obvious child

**Author's Note:**

> for madrafeadler, but this kinda got out of hand.
> 
> warnings for implied abortion.

Partnership is vague.  
  
It suits her staunch practicality in the matter. She can say that it’s financial, and circumstantial and mutually beneficial and lots of other similar words that end in ‘icial’. It means that if it ends –and it could end suddenly, nastily –then they both can say the circumstances ended. Or it wasn’t beneficial any longer.  
  
Partnership suits his defiance. There is no expectation to be with her when it doesn’t interest him. There are no dates to remember. No future plans. No debt.  
  
It’s mostly sex, to be fair to them. Sometimes she is there during functions or a particularly boring event, and they keep eachother updated on various projects and where they’ll be, but the rendezvous almost always begin or end in a bed.  
  
Rafe generally does not like to sleep with others. Sharing is the real problem, he knows. But he also likes waking up in Amalfi with Nadine riding him vigorously, one hand on his chest, the other hand somewhere delightful.  
  
That’s the only thing that seems to come under partnership: the bed. And he for once doesn’t mind. The pillow talk is interesting. Nadine is interesting –she can be wonderfully easygoing, and she can also pull rank.  
  
How rare to find a partner he would listen to when they say _‘no’_. Rarer, still, that he’d like it, even.  
  
He likes their partnership just as it is. With the bed. Without the rules.  
  
Which is why, on a Thursday, when Nadine walks him out onto the lawn of some estate they’re at for –something, he’s sure—and says, “Rafe, I think I’m pregnant.” His mind screams _contract terminated._  
  
To be more accurate, his mind says nothing at first. It takes a few seconds for the system to catch up, and in that time he inhales a good part of his Gibson and winds up coughing desperately.  
  
Nadine watches him carefully, her hand going to his upper back as if offering to pat, but she hits harder than she means, often. Rafe waves a hand to reject the offer. He straightens, his eyes burning. His exhalations are shaky, still suffering, yet he goes for a drink anyway to save himself from speaking.  
  
She crosses her arms and her eyes flick down momentarily. Then she is looking at him again. “Did you hear wh--”  
  
“ _Yes_ , I heard you.” Rafe hisses at her, practically ducks from the words. He takes her elbow with a free hands and walks them further from the other guests, now spilling onto the estate lawn. “This is _hardly_ the goddamn place--”  
  
Unphased, Nadine pulls from the touch slightly and straightens, turning her head slightly. Her eyes are still right on Rafe’s, despite how equivocal and uncomfortable he has become, like a cell squirming underneath a microscope, aware of being watched. “You said you were going to Washington tomorrow. I could hardly have waited idly by.”  
  
Rafe looks around. He coughs, again, gentler this time, and stares at a bleak corner of the lawn when he speaks again. Suddenly he isn’t up to looking at her. “So you decided this was the best time?”  
  
Coming around to his front, she stands in his eyeline, demanding attention. “It was the first opportunity. I thought you might want to know.” He notes the microexpression of her shoulders dropping. Of her turning into him. It’s vulnerability. Nadine is allowing herself to be vulnerable.  
  
She’s also too late to try that.  
  
Turning away from her, he begins to walk back towards the estate, feeling suddenly parched. He walks away in angry, knife-like steps. The moment her eyes aren’t on his face, he closes his eyes, and pushes down on the right one. _It isn’t happening. It’ll go away. There’s--_  
  
A hand on his shoulder tugs him back to face her. “Where are you going?!” He is only halfway to facing her, her hand grasping the inside of his wrist loosely.   
  
“Getting a drink.” He says, and goes to keep walking before her grip tightens. It’s a joint-lock of some kind that brings them practically face-to-face.  The grip is discreet enough that nobody else seems to pay any attention, and there’s nought but the warning of pressure on him.  
  
Rafe knows, acutely, that this means he’ll listen to her or have his wrist broken. Or he can raise his hand to her first.  
  
What wonderful options to be left with.  
  
Swallowing, she murmurs, “We have to talk about this.” Still, somehow, she makes herself vulnerable to him, and Rafe’s only reaction is to sigh, quietly, his head cocked to the side as if he is trying to lean away from her, but maintaining eye contact for show. Nadine looks right back at him, unshaken but still uncertain.  
  
“You –you never even said you were sure.” He says, suddenly, and then she realises that the eye contact is _entirely_ for show. Rafe is like a child brought up on another plant, his interactions learned, his emotions present but unpredictable. What kind of a man would look for an exit strategy when his wrist is still in a grip? “What even makes you think you’re--…” He sighs again. He can’t even say it.  
  
She supplies the word for him, “Pregnant?” He nearly winces to hear it, turning his head to look around at the other guests. Releasing his wrist, Nadine’s hand falls to her side. “I’m three weeks late. I’ve been sick on and off for the last week out of nowhere.”  
  
Rafe is finishing the Gibson. “There’s always something going around.” He supplies, with the slightest hint of optimism to his voice.  
  
She lets herself laugh. “Maybe you’re right, and this is all coincidence.” She turns her head slightly at the laugh of other guests, far-off but sudden, and Rafe notes once more the scar on her neck. For some unfathomable reason, it makes think how awful it’d be, seeing her go. “I thought you might want to get comfortable with the possibility before anything happens.”  
  
“Comfortable.” He repeats her, quietly, scoffing. Then, leaning close, he murmurs, “You know, I’m actually the ‘no news is good news’ type, don’t you?”  
  
Crossing past her, he makes a movement towards the bar again, the drink in his glass woefully empty. She stays where she is, but says, “Then I’ll let you know when I find out.” Ever the pragmatist. It is only for seconds at a time that she loses her shine to him.  
  
“Tomorrow.” He says, quieter, leaning to her, but not moving. “I want to know before I land in Seattle.”  
  
Nadine nods. “Until then,” She gestures. “A manhattan. I’ll only be a moment.” She takes her leave, then, and he watches her cross the room before going to the bar and getting her drink.  
  
He does not order another for himself. His head is without clarity already.  
  
Needless to say, she does not come home with him that night.  
  
-  
  
Some years before Nadine, Rafe had dated a ballet dancer he’d seen at a performance in Lincoln Centre.  
  
Daphne had been elegant and cold, graceful and reserved. They had rarely been emotional together, but the nature of her work seemed to match them well. He hadn’t loved her, per se, but he had been fond of her. She had his loft in New York decorated. She shouted back at him, occasionally.  
  
It was the longest he had ever been happy seeing one person. He didn’t crave other women or men at the time. He did not grow disinterested in her.  
  
Her work was so important to her that he would wonder often, alone at dinner, which she would pick.  
  
Wonder no longer, he did. In the fall of that year, a few weeks before his 32nd birthday, she called him before his flight to New York. They had not spoken in a week, and he had been angry, primarily. “I’m pregnant.” She’d said, eventually, to break her silence. “But I have an appointment for later this week.”  
  
Wasn’t that the sensible thing? Her work was so terribly important, and Rafe was young, after all –and he’d had no plans to settle and bed down for the long nap. He’d never really entertained the notion of children. Neither had Daphne –not once had they spoken of the possibility. Only the tragedy when it struck dancers in her company. The _fat ones_ she told of; who wanted to pirouette at eight months but would never dance afterwards.  
  
He came away feeling that dirtiest of all dirty feelings –disappointed. When he saw her the week after, it was as if nothing had ever happened. No pregnancy. No news.  
  
Things ended after that.  
  
-  
  
It’s snowing in Seattle when he lands.  
  
He isn’t able to focus on anything said in the meeting. Alone, he hadn’t slept at all, and on the plane over he had dozed slightly, but had dreamt of Daphne for the first time in many years and woke disturbed. So disturbed, in fact, that he did not even recall the phonecall he was supposed to receive.  
  
No phonecall. Wheels down in Seattle and out into a blizzard. He catches a cab to the office and makes it on time, but has nothing to say about dividend distribution or anything else proposed on the agenda. As the meeting draws on, he reflects on yesterday at the estate party, and how Nadine had looked with her shoulders dropped slightly, her neck angled and bare. Vulnerable.  
  
Nadine hadn’t divulged her suspicion to get him comfortable. Why would she? A practical woman, it took Rafe practically months to find anything more about her than her home country.  
  
She told him because she was afraid, and Rafe must only have made it worse.  
  
Throughout the rest of the agenda, he finds himself irritable, and is relieved when it’s over. He calls for a car for the hotel he frequents whenever he’s in this part of Washington: same room, same staff. His journey there is met with radio silence on Nadine’s end. He thinks of her, and all the use they could have made out of the limousine together.  
  
The snow is coming on so fast that it’s hard to see. It’s under a black sky that he makes it to the hotel, and feels so utterly exhausted from the day he’s had that he doesn’t even stop to eat anything.  
  
Once in his room, Rafe takes off his jacket, and his shoes, and passes out on the sheets of the made bed, jetlagged and miserable.  
  
(At three in the morning he wakes with an intense energy. He checks his phone convinced that he will have heard something. Still, there is no news.  
  
And no news, he realises, isn’t good news).  
  
-  
  
Amazingly, it is another three days until he hears from her.  
  
Just a text.  
  
_Flying out to Prague on Monday._  
  
He reads it when he’s arriving back in New York, and nearly pitches the phone against the nearest wall.  
  
-  
  
“Nadine?”  
  
Nearly a damn week later.  
  
He comes home to the sound of Paul Simon’s Graceland on the stereo. There’s relative silence outside of that. He hangs his jacket in the cloakroom and kicks off his shoes, coming around the glass wall that separates the cloakroom and living area.  
  
The smell of dinner is faint but citrusy, and as the strains of _Under African Skies_ fade away, he comes around the sleek black leather of his largest loveseat to find her asleep, curled slightly.  
  
Nadine looks divine. He aches to touch her skin, lineless and dark. Her breaths are shallow and pretty, but level, indicating that she is enjoying some level of peace or sleep. There is a cashmere blanket over the lower half of her body, mostly tangled in her feet, leaving her chest exposed to the air of the apartment.  
  
Rafe is so overwhelmed at seeing her that he forgets, for a few minutes, why he has been so ardent to see her. It’s not as if they are lovers or messily entwined in a relationship, and so ten or so days is hardly cause for him to feel like this.  
  
Gently, he sits on the furthermost inch of the leather, barely there, just to get a better look at her. Around the eyes, Nadine looks tired. There are no distinct signs of makeup on her face. He doesn’t envy her for so much European travel, jetlagged as he’d been in Seattle. Amazingly, her hair is clear of her face, despite how he is turned mostly on her side. If only she were facing the other way, and he could lay next to her without waking her.  
  
Then, of course, it seems to him that he should wake her.  
  
After all, a week with the cliffhanger he’s been left with his hardly kind.   
  
In sudden recollection, he draws back, now closed to the prospect of niceties. He looks over her body again, for some clue on the matter –some sign. But her body is mostly covered by the deep red cashmere, and even if it weren’t: she looks almost thinner to his eyes then when last they saw eachother.  
  
Unable to bear it any longer, he moves a hand to her shoulder and presses in a small, firm gesture. “Nadine.”  
  
She’s a moderate sleeper at best, and a military girl. One word and she rouses, drawing herself in slightly and frowning, her eyes opening after a few flutters. With a small yawn, she fixes her gaze onto Rafe and seems to size him up, effectively.  
  
“What time is it?” She asks, sitting herself up, and drawing the blanket around her slightly.  
  
Rafe is quick on his watch, despite the beautiful clock, visible from where he sits. “It’s just gone nine.” He looks back at her and thinks to say ‘I missed you’ or ‘now would be a good time for some goddamn answers’, but cannot settle on either. Not that it matters. Quick to evade, she goes to stand.  
  
“I’m exhausted.” She says, sounding genuinely tired. “Join me when you’re--”  
  
“Just a minute.” Grabbing a portion of the blanket around her, Rafe pulls her towards him before she can walk away. Nadine draws back and lets it fall to the floor, still limp in his grasp. She is in her underwear, and a small top that would be endearing to him –if not enticing, honestly—if it were not for the circumstances. “What the hell happened to calling me before Seattle?”  
  
She’s giving him that look again, the one where she sizes him up once more. Only, he has no intention of being the prey.  
  
At her silence, he raises his voice. “Now, just what the hell’s going on with--”  
  
Practically grimacing, Nadine gestures in dismissal. “I said I’m going--”  
  
As she turns, he grabs her arm hard and hollers, “Nadine,” but she is quicker, slipping his grasp, and turning back on him, her eyes furious. She doesn’t say anything, and he takes the cue to stand –just a bit taller than her, and drawing to his height as he growls. “Sit down and tell me what the hell is going on!”  
  
A moment passes and neither of them move.  
  
After a beat, she says, “I thought no news was good news.”  
  
Rafe dips his head for a moment. He tries to gather his thoughts, wanting to think of an inobtuse way of outright asking her. They can’t dance around it forever. One way or another, he needs to know. “That isn’t fair.”  
  
Nadine lets out a mirthless little laugh at that. “Pretending to be concerned with equity doesn’t suit you.”  
  
He rolls his eyes. “And equivocating doesn’t suit you. Just cut to the goddamned chase, would you?”  
  
Amazing, that seems to do the trick, and she comes to sit on the couch, at a distance from him, still seeming to study him in her gaze. Is she looking for clues to what he wants to hear? Good luck finding them, Rafe thinks deliriously. Now that his answer is on the horizon, he almost wishes he hasn’t asked, his head suddenly light, filling slowly with insecurity.  
  
What does he want to hear? He looks away from Nadine briefly, but finds no refuge in the sight of the apartment that Daphne herself decorated.  
  
He suddenly feels emboldened enough to outright ask, but as the sentence begins, the words rot and turn to ash in his mouth, so that he trails off with an absent, “Are you--…pregnant..?”  
  
He watches as Nadine disengages from his eyes and leans forward onto her knees, considering something in the midspace between them that is unseeable to Rafe. As he watches, he suddenly realises that this is –there are consequences beyond knowing. A thousand _what ifs_ appear to him like raindrops from a sudden stormcloud opening above him.  
  
He almost wants to eat the words until he sees the smallest movement.  
  
In his periphery, he sees her nod.  
  
But he can’t be sure until he hears it, in a small but unbreakable voice. “Yes.”  
  
He looks up, then. Nadine’s eyes have already found his face. They are simultaneously trying to gauge eachother’s reactions. It offers no clues either way, but her never asked for clues.  
  
Rafe just wanted to know.  
  
So now he knows.  
  
“Thank you.” He hears himself say, with impressive calm, rising smoothly to standing. He picks up the blanket that had fallen and drapes it over Nadine’s knee as he makes his way towards the bedroom.  
  
He only manages to take a few steps before he hears her say, “Rafe?” with her characteristic hardness. Turning back around, he finds Nadine standing, now, facing him, with a few inches between them.  
  
She doesn’t say anything else. She’s expecting him to do what he’d done before.  
  
Usually, it can be counted on for him to make a scene of some kind –never been much for containment and a good temper. And wouldn’t this be the thing –the only thing justifiable to lose his mind over?  
  
But they’re both silent. Even if he wanted to, Rafe can’t find any ready anger to use, and instead they are left with the sounds of ‘Diamond on the Soles of Her Shoes’ filling the space between them.  
  
He turns and goes back into the cloakroom, dressing for the cold once more.  
  
It’s suddenly the perfect time of night for a drive.  
  
-  
  
When he comes home in the rosy hours of the sunrise, he finds his place empty. The cashmere blanket is discarded by the largest black loveseat.  
  
The bed in the master bedroom is discarded similarly, unmade and barren. When he pushes the door open and the hall light gently illuminates it, the sight is somehow tragic.  
  
The last time they had both been in New York together, she was brokering a pseudo-security function for some black market event, and the city has always been a habit for Rafe. They’d met at the King Cole Bar after her rendezvous, and then came back together –and then came multiple other times, in multiple other different ways.  
  
He wonders, briefly, if things are over between them.  
  
A reproduction Rothko that Daphne had selected catches his eye, then. It doesn’t suit the rest of the room at all.  
  
Rafe settles for the bedroom down the hall, with the bay windows. It saves disturbing the sheets of the other room.  


	2. adult diversion

Things are quiet for a few days.   
  
It’s surprising, but probably just. He’d only been after a confirmation –a clear yes or no. There had been no game plan for either possibility. And in his right mind, Rafe can’t conceptualise it, He imagines that her ‘yes’ is a ringing affirmative to something so much more banal –‘yes, I’m a aries’ or ‘yes, I have chicken pox’. And not ‘yes, I’m pregnant’.   
  
God, he hasn’t really digested it. The words don’t mean anything to him. He’s never been close to this side of life. The closest was with his ballet dancer, and even so, what then? There had been no –no change, no evidence, nothing. His life was never even touched by it, let alone changed.   
  
Even now, he can’t even begin to marry the ideas in his head of Nadine and notions of –of children, for fuck’s sake.   
  
And when he leaves him in silence for days, he fears he’ll burst from the pressure inside of his head. Before he heads out for a golf game on a Sunday morning, he’s so pent up that he takes his nine iron out on the white audi, swinging at it desperately until the windshield is a mosaic of shatters and all of the headlights are shattered. The hood is dented and sits crooked, and the golf club is bent so much that it eventually snaps in half   
  
Worse than that, he’s sure he’s thrown his shoulder out in the onslaught.   
  
-  
  
It’s not until Tuesday that he ambuscades her at Clover Club, where he knows she’ll be, concluding some such business that he doesn’t care about.   
  
He climbs the stairs to the place and looks about, a stranger in the international crowd there. Rafe could never commit to his language classes –not in French or mandarin or even german recalling how father used to say ‘everybody speaks English anyway, and if they don’t, they ought to’.   
  
Nadine is by one of the windows, purloined by a ferrety-looking blonde who’s probably a few years his junior. She’s sat, one leg over the other, listening intently, with a serious sort of look that he’s seen her use during phonecalls. As she turns her head to say something, he can see she’s wearing pearls that obscure the scar on her neck.   
  
Firstly, he is glad to see her in a purely physiological way. Her form is so pleasing to see, and he aches to touch her hair, for a start. A strange seizing in his chest makes his ache for a drink, too. But then he recalls her, lean over, nodding, and remembers himself. Suddenly, he isn’t looking at her in the same way, and instead this series of question marks in red silk vex him.   
  
She doesn’t look any different. Is she supposed to?   
  
He recalls a colleague on a ski trip last year talking about his expectant wife and how she’s been ‘glowing’, or some other bullshit. The things people are capable of believing. He looks again, from by the ferns at the bar. There’s no more glow to her than usual, he guesses. If anything, she looks slightly worse for wear, drawn in the face and tired around the eyes. It’s difficult to tell from the distance.   
  
He delays his going over there to finish a drink, suddenly needing something more than indignation to face her. There’s no rush, it seems. Nadine hasn’t moved from her seat, listening more than talking, taking a note here and there. Strangely nervous, he waits for a lull in the conversation to cross the bar.   
  
He goes straight to her, trying to look uninterested –casual, even, but he feels painfully obvious.   
  
Alarm lights up on Nadine’s face when she catches sight of him, ironed out suddenly by a serious, almost angry look in her eyes. The rest of her face is trained into neutrality in a second.   
  
Like a shark cutting into it’s prey, Rafe opens his mouth in a tight smile, “Nadine,” He says, waiting a beat, “How nice to run into you like this.” The blonde man at the other side of the table goes to protest, but is too slow. “You don’t mind if we have a minute, do you?” Blinking, his gaze looks lazy in pleasure, daring anyone to disagree. He turns back to Nadine. “It’s just –well, we _also_ have a little unfinished business.”   
  
Rafe knows, to a calculated decimal, how much damage she could do to him right now. But this isn’t her natural territory. He grew up in this world –where all of the fighting is duplicitous, done while smiling, with one hand washing the other.   
  
But he must have underestimated her.   
  
“I’m afraid my business with Mister Braidwood here takes precedence.” She says, easily, her gaze like an ice pick to the temple. “But you have my contact number. Feel free to make an appointment.”   
  
It takes Rafe a moment to process it. He thinks he must short-circuit for just a second, and feels himself laugh very gently, quick to protest. “Nadine--”  
  
She cuts him off with a hand. “Good night, Rafe.” And just like that, all of her attention goes to the man sitting opposite her, quiet, and likely a little confused. It happens so fast that it’s actually hurtful.   
  
Oh, he’s not broken-hearted or anything like that. He’s just a little pissed off.   
  
For a second, he considers himself beat, and takes exactly one step away when he realises just how angry he is, jaws pressed tightly together, his elbows bent sharply, his whole body stiff. He is owed a goddamned explanation, at the very least, and he’s going to get one whether she likes it or not.   
  
Turning back around suddenly, he draws himself close to her and flashes a loveless smile at the other gentleman. “I’m afraid it really can’t wait.” He says, in a hard tone.   
  
Nadine looks as if she’s going to heave him through the window. “Rafe--”  
  
“It won’t take a second.” He says, again, not talking to her. The tension between them is clear, and the now very confused man nods, rising, seeing the intensity or Rafe’s gaze and the tendons surfacing in his neck.   
  
“I’ll just get another drink.” He says, before Nadine rises with him, stricken, suddenly.   
  
“There’s really no need.” She assures him. “Sit.” She says, her voice raising slightly. “Mister Adler was just leaving.”   
  
It’s a very weak play, and he had expected a little better. He isn’t at all embarrassed by the situation, and instead finds a perverse pleasure in Nadine’s discomfort. It’s a perfect revenge for her silence these past few days. He nods, nearly laughing once more. “Oh, sure.” He says, withdrawing slightly. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”   
  
Nodding, he can barely keep the words in, near-grinning with a maniacal delight. As he takes a step away, he turns back, as if suddenly recalling, “Oh! –and congratulations on the baby.” He waits a beat for the punchline, watching Nadine’s face fill with a sudden fear. Then, spitting, “You must be delighted.”   
  
That’s all the scene lacks.   
  
He departs then, knowing that damage done, and waiting to feel delighted by it, but somehow missing the mark.  
  
He slows when he realises why. God, he’d said it. And in saying it, he realises the reality of it all now. A baby. Oh, Jesus Christ –his cruelty leaves his mind, and suddenly Rafe’s hands are shaky for a drink, or for something stronger. Whichever comes first.   
  
Of course, he isn’t granted that mercy. As he’s heading down to the quiet corridor to the bathroom, he feels a hard grip on his shoulder, and then a force throwing him up against a wall. He’s only just got his bearings back when he feels the blade of Nadine’s forearm against his neck. God, her chest is heaving, and briefly, he wonders if she’s going to devour him.   
  
(Naturally, he tries to overlook how fucking gorgeous she looks like this.)  
  
“Give me one reason I shouldn’t break your fucking neck.” She hisses, pressing her arm into him and pressing down right on his adam’s apple. He feels as if he’s going to swallow it with the pressure on his windpipe. God, he’s never seen her like this before. “You think this is a game?!”   
  
Bringing his knee up, Rafe kicks out and tries to put a little distance between them, nursing his neck once he’s free.   
  
But he isn’t free for long. In a second, he’s back in the same position, with one of his wrists trapped against the wall, a hard pressure on the pulse point. “Do you have any idea--…” Nadine huffs, the rising and falling of her chest sharper now. “..,--how important that contract is?”   
  
He isn’t sure if she wants an answer. He can’t exactly talk with her on his throat like this.   
  
Coughing out, he protests. “What was I supposed to do? You--” She presses down even harder for a second, and then lets up, putting some space between them, recovering. She covers her eyes with a hand, and briefly, he has to wonder if she is angry, or genuinely upset. “You didn’t exactly leave me with a lot of options here!”   
  
Mistake. She whirls on him like a tiger. “ _I_ didn’t?!” An accusatory finger points nastily at him. “What was _I_ supposed to do?!”   
  
Suddenly righteous with anger, Rafe counters her, unafraid. “You were--”  
  
A lady appears at the end of the corridor. Her eyes take in the scene, and she slips past them into the women’s bathroom. It knocks some of the wind out of Rafe’s sails, so he drags Nadine by the elbow towards the end of the passage, where things are quieter.   
  


When he next speaks, his voice is quieter, but certainly not calmer. “You were supposed to talk to me about this, goddamn it. Not just--” He waves a hand in demonstration “—fucking _disappear_ as soon as you’d told me.”   
  
Nadine’s eyes widen incredulously, and it doesn’t take her a second to snap back, in hard, deliberate words. “I _was_ talking about it, and then you walked right out the door!”   
  
Rafe’s mouth opens out of habit, but he realises then that she’s right –or at least, half-right. He had left her in the apartment, but what else could he do? With news like that, he’d needed to clear her head. It was Nadine that was gone when he’d returned. It was Nadine that had cut her ties, effectively, leaving him in silent and terrible suspense.   
  
“Just as well,” He mutters, sullenly. “We’re talking about it now, so what’s the problem?”   
  
He thinks he’s being perfectly reasonable, but clearly, he’s alone in that thought, because her eyes light up again in fury. “What’s the _problem_?” She echoes him, still in disbelief. “I just lost the biggest contract I’ve seen in the last six months, Rafe. And that’s not the last I’m going to have to pass up because of _you_.”   
  
He’s about to protest at that, and then he looks at her and realises what she’s saying. Or rather, what she’s implying.   
  
Briefly, his eyes flick from her face to her stomach. Suddenly parched, he swallows.   
  
“Now –now, what are you--…” His eyes follow her as she starts off down the corridor again, reaching out for one of her arms, despite the immediate slip he gives him. “Nadine.” He calls after her, in a gruff voice. Then, when she doesn’t turn. “Nadine, you can’t be serious--”  
  
She turns, and suddenly looks so implacable again. “Not your concern.” She says, simply, in an unreadable voice. God, isn’t she –afraid? Rafe’s terrified, in that moment. Everything remotely solid in his life is now water, and he’s drowning in the details of it all.   
  
He takes a breath, hating to be the one at a loss. “It damn well is my concern.” Breathlessly, he swallows again and fixes a stray hair that has fallen onto the side of his face. Cruelty swells in him again, along with curiosity. He doesn’t know how prophetic her statement is, and the two emotions manifest in a short laugh, “If that even if my child--”  
  
The remark clearly lands, but instead of making her face hotter with fury like before, she seems to drop in temperature, looking even colder, freezing up, as it were. Rafe didn’t even know she had it in her to be hurt at all, and wonders if she is, or if there is something else going on.   
  
“Go home, Rafe.” She says, then, as if laying it all to rest. But nothing is put to rest! Rafe is practically dizzy with revelation. He needs explanation –or, at least, a place to put all of this confusion and anger and fear that are filling him to the point of eruption. Hot as Vesuvius, he shakes his head, unwilling to move.   
  
Having been standing there, still for a few seconds, he realises there is now distance between them and stalks after Nadine, pushing past other patrons to get to her, hearing calls of annoyance in Polish. In the throng of people, he takes the inside of her wrist and pulls her back towards him, trying to look gentle.   
  
“Nadine--” He hisses.   
  
Her voice is airy and breathless when she speaks again, her free hand coming up to her head, her attempts to free her other hand suddenly weaker. “Go home.” She says, once more, but without her characteristic strength.   
  
He’s seconds from raising his voice when he feels the hand closest to his go lax, and then her back is against his chest, limp. He thinks she’s fallen, for a second, but the sudden weight doesn’t let up. Fear flaring inside of him again, he takes the frame of her shoulders, and shakes gently.   
  
“Nadine?” He murmurs, again, aware of all of the people around them. There is no answer. As he shifts, her body falls back again, and he’s nearly not quick enough. Struggling slightly, he brings her form down onto his knee as he comes to a slight kneel, looking around for some help.  
  
Oh, God. She’s fainted.   
  
-  
  
She wakes in a function room that the establishment has so kindly leant them.   
  
Rafe is calling an associate in Texas at the time, and hangs up almost immediately as soon as he sees her cognizant.   
  
By this time, most of his anger has dissipated. He’s had another drink, and a little time to calm down. There’s still plenty of indignant, residual anger, but even Rafe can tell that now might not be the time. Despite how wronged he feels, he swallows his pride.   
  
He addresses her first, noting how faint in the face she still looks. “Nadine,” He says, quietly, taking the seat next to the chaise lounge they’d put her on. His mouth is dry and he feels hideous with sweat, but finds his smoothest voice to speak. “You took quite the fall.” Not quite ready for sympathy, he settles on that, looking at his phone or the floor –anywhere but her, feeling the strangest kind of sadness to see her like this. God, she doesn’t deserve his sympathy right now, and yet--…  
  
Slowly, Nadine props herself up on her elbows, and one hand traces the perspiration on her brow. The series of expressions seem to indicate that she’s relaxing, adjusting to her surroundings. Without looking at Rafe, she smiles to herself joylessly. “Did I really faint?” She asks derisively, expecting no answer.    
  
That strange feeling seems to overtake Rafe again. He feels justified to desire shouting at her, demanding an explanation to what’s going on, and what’s going to happen, but instead he finds himself gentle to her, of all things, suddenly unable to resist asking, “How do you feel?”   
  
She looks at him, then, and he realises that perhaps being tactful isn’t such a terrible thing, even if he has never much taken to it. Then, she looks away, and lets out a gentle breath. “Tired.” She says, honestly.   
  
The admonishment he should give her becomes secondary again to something newer, still. It’s not a desire to protect. God, he’d only ever do that to frustrate Nadine, who has always done a better job looking after herself and her army than Rafe has of looking after himself. But –but it’s something like that. Something not dissimilar. Part of him wants to slap her for all that she’s said so far tonight, but another part would be content to lay her to rest, having just one less thing to worry about.   
  
Still looking away, she sighs again, and he hears her ask, “Why are you hear, Rafe?”   
  
What a ridiculous question. He doesn’t have infinite patience, and has to scoff at that. “You don’t think you owe me an explanation?”   
  
Drawing herself up to sitting, she tips her head back, as if to stretch out her neck, and respond with her eyes still closed. “An explanation for what?” Then, her eyes open and she looks at him, groundedly. “How are you confused? Do you need help with the _really big_ words?”   
  
Rafe’s first instinct is to bite at that, but he talks himself down from it. She’s just wasting time, avoiding the question. He’ll get what he wants out of her.   
  
He rises, and takes in a breath, preparing himself. “I didn’t think you were serious about any of this.”   
  
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Nadine tilt her head in an expression that would otherwise be playful. “Serious about what?”   
  
One way or another, he has to address it. “About –about a baby.” It takes a lot to get the word out of his mouth, and the moment he does Rafe feels violently uncomfortable in the room. His skin itches. His heart palpitates unnaturally. God, he wants no part in the concept of it.   
  
Nadine, in contrast, is vexed none. “That’s not your business.” She says, calmly.   
  
Rafe swivels in a sudden confusion. He scoffs again, but only because it’s the only thing he can think to do. “Are you really suggesting this has nothing to do with me?” Something occurs to him, then, and he leans closer to her, his voice only quiet because he can barely believe what he’s saying. “Or –or have you dragged me into someone else’s mess?”   
  
That thought is just as hideous. They’re not exclusive, he knows, and it’s not as if in the year or so they’ve known eachother that he hasn’t fucked other people. But the idea, suddenly, of someone else’s hands on Nadine –let alone someone else’s child--…  
  
“I haven’t dragged you into anything.” She says, looking right at him.   
  
Rafe feels as if he’s going to have an aneurism. “Answer the question.” He hisses.   
  
And for the first time, he feels, in weeks, she looks at him and doesn’t evade or equivocate. She’s nothing but square with him. “It’s yours.” She says, simply, seeming a little uncomfortable. Shifting to the edge of her seat, she rises, a little shakily, and takes her clutch. “I hope that clears things up, because I’m--”  
  
“You don’t want me to be involved.”   
  
Rafe only comes out with it like that because the truth comes out to him like that. Her defensiveness and distance make sense to him, suddenly.   
  
It gives her pause. She turns on him, gently, and looks almost confused. Found out, more like, Rafe thinks to himself bitterly. He has a divine right to this thing –she can’t keep him in the dark any longer.   
  
“You don’t _want_ to be involved.” She says, then, and that confuses him even more.   
  
“Since when are you a goddamned expert on what I want?” He snaps.   
  
Nadine’s face draws cold again in annoyance. “You made things quite clear the last time we spoke.”   
  
The last time--…in the apartment? When Rafe had left? He opens his mouth to say something but she beats him to the punch. “I was _scared_ , and I trusted you.” She barks, “And you pretended you hadn’t even heard me!” Nadine shakes her head at him. “Not a mistake I’ll make twice.”   
  
He goes to take her upper arm, but she recoils from him like a cut snake. For once, he is too sick of yelling to yell, and merely murmurs, “Nadine, for god’s sake…” At least she’s listening. “Jesus, you think you were the only one scared?” It physically pains him to say it. Vulnerability is not something Rafe comes in contact with often. He mistakes it for weakness, and fears Nadine will laugh him out of the room for saying it.   
  
Instead, she looks at him as if she thinks he’s lying. “You were _scared?”_   
  
God, he’d rather crack open his own skull than do this.   
  
“Of course I was.” He mutters, quickly, as if it should be obvious. “I was –in over my head. I –I needed a minute.” Then, for some reason that Rafe can’t fathom –probably his damned pride, he says, “That doesn’t give you the goddamned right to cut me out.”   
  
She raises a hand to her brow again and Rafe flinches with worry, relieved when she merely says, “Rafe, I’m tired.” Her hand falls away to her stomach and she looks at him. “Right now, this is what I want.”   
  
Rafe can’t look anywhere but her eyes, suddenly, feeling confusion, resentment and respect for her, all at once.   
  
“I don’t expect anything from you.” Her hand goes to his face, then, and she tilts her head again, canting it slightly to the side. “This isn’t personal.”  
  
How can it not be?   
  
She takes a moment to gather herself, then. Rafe watches her and tries to take a silent inventory of his feelings, but they are all so distant and up in the air that he cannot interpret them at all. God, his life was so drastically different barely two weeks ago. Now, the future is not made up of conference calls and ski trips, but a potential too dizzy for him to stare in the face.   
  
He is unmoving, eyes glazed over, and Nadine notes this. Standing, she puts a soft hand to his chest and says, “I’ll be in touch.” She says, and as he feels her leaving he breaks his trance enough to say.   
  
“But, what about--”  
  
Nadine waves a hand to silence him. “Sleep on it, okay?”   
  



	3. pleasure principle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for sex. 
> 
> lmao rafe dadler ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

That night, Rafe dreams that the roots of an enormous tree have grown in his bedroom. And when he walks out into the hall, he trips over a root and sees an enormous, thick tree, growing there.   
  
As he pushes himself off of the floor, roots bind around his ankles, and then he’s trapped there, struggling. But the more his hands and feet struggles against the thick roots that bind, the taller and fatter the tree seems to grow, destroying the ceiling, dwarfing the couches and creaking the floor.   
  
It feels like the life is being squeezed out of him, juicing him like a lemon, his energies and juices being sucked up the great tree that has starts sprouting flowers and green, green leaves.   
  
Rafe wakes exhausted, aching all over, and sweating, at six in the morning. He wakes alone, and laments that Nadine isn’t besides him, briefly. Not romantically, he tries to convince himself. There’s just an undeniable comfort from a warm body next to you –especially one so lovely, even in sleep.   
  
Once he thinks of Nadine, he finds it difficult to resume sleep.   
  
He lies awake trying desperately to understand her, but he cannot. Nadine has shown herself to be a hard, serious, independent lady of war. What on earth about motherhood could appeal to her? It doesn’t make a bit of sense to him.   
  
Why would it? Rafe’s own mother was so absent that he has only formed ideas about what one should be through other people.   
  
Come to think of it, his father was not much of a muchness. He was a short-tempered brat of a man with a Napoleon complex so large that it was probably taller than him. The only positive thing he’d given Rafe was the fear of turning into the old man, which to this day stops him short a few times whenever he thinks to start yelling.    
  
Yet, he doesn’t think _he’d_ be such an awful father. He’d thought about it, for the shortest time, when Daphne had called him. He remembers zoning out on the flight to Chicago thinking about how, if he were a father, his children would want for nothing. They’d go to the best schools and network with the best families and get to see the most wonderful parts of the world. That, somehow, the ugliest parts of Rafe’s personality would rot and fall away, and he’d be mild-tempered and fair and compassionate and selfless overnight.   
  
Not that it mattered much. He saw her after her ‘appointment’, and had laid beside her that night, joking emptily that it was probably for the best. That he’d probably he a horrible father, anyway.   
  
-  
  
Honestly? He thinks that things must be over between them.   
  
Until, a few mornings later, he receives her message _‘friend’s exhibiton at Met. 8:30.’_  
  
It’s an invitation. Jesus, if that doesn’t confuse him even more. Almost always, Rafe brings her along to things, and not the other way around. He definitely has more friends in New York (or, at least, people he knows), and that’s never been a problem. Nadine is private, and professional. She compartmentalizes –he is not part of her personal worlds: her friends, or family.   
  
If she really is inviting him to a _friend’s_ event, then this is –different, he thinks. Serious.   
  
Briefly, he panics. Does this mean Nadine wants him to be a part of –of things? He rereads the message again and again, trying to infer meaning that cannot be there.   
  
Relax, he tells himself. It’s just an art show, that’s all. It has nothing to do with anything else.   
  
In the evening, he dresses, feeling oddly self-conscious. He wears a sportcoat only for the sake of the cold –no tie, open collar. His father used to say that ‘overdressing is compensating’. Then, to settle his nerves, he has a scotch, and then another. The black Bugatti is ready for him by the time he’s downstairs.   
  
It’s only a little past nine when he arrives. The champagne on the door is cheaper than he’s used to, and honestly a little nasty. Artists, Rafe notes, scornfully.  
  
As it turns out, the art is actually photography, perhaps his least favourite kind, and as he looks around, he has to wonder if he’s in the right place. After all, Nadine is a lady of taste, isn’t she? She always dresses well, and keeps generally fine company, if he does say so himself. What on earth could attract her to this?   
  
Nadine spots him, first. She’s in a white, loose, blouse and cigarette trousers that stop smartly at the ankle. Never a dress. Rafe has yet to even see a skirt, but cannot imagine it. Nadine is not the type to wilfully encumber herself, it seems. (And yet)  
  
She’s with another man again, and he feels himself stand taller as they approach, almost out of habit.   
  
Thankfully he _is_ taller. The other gentleman is a small, Asian man, impeccably dressed and practically bubbling over. Nadine introduces him as the artist, and he encourages them both to have a wander around the exhibition.   
  
The man’s energy is chaotic and intense. Rafe feels tired from their brief interaction.   
  
“Photography.” He notes quietly, to Nadine, as they stand in front of an enormous, blown-up shot of –well, mostly guttering in some side-street. He watches Nadine take in the art, her eyes wandering over the details. In white, she looks dark and radiant, and he overcomes the sudden urge to bite her neck.   
  
She leans into him, then, making the temptation harder to resist, and laughs. “I can’t stand most of his stuff, to be honest with you.” That makes Rafe smile, genuinely. “I can’t bear to tell him, but it’s so--”  
  
As she searches for a word, Rafe supplies, “Pretentious?”   
  
Her eyebrows flick up and she smiles. “I was going to say bleak, but I suppose there you have it.” She begins towards another piece, and Rafe follows a few strides behind. This isn’t exactly his crowd, so he avoids getting too separated. God, he doesn’t want to have to talk to some ‘artsy’ types.   
  
He catches up to her and they both look at another shot, black and white, of skinny, dark-skinned children. Rafe remembers having to study the history or art in his prep school days, so he feels he’s allowed to dislike it with conviction. He could’ve taken that shot.   
  
He finishes his glass of cheap champagne and they move on to another shot. Sidling up to her, he talks in her ear quietly. “If you don’t like it, then why are we here?”   
  
He’s generally careful about using the word ‘we’. He hopes Nadine doesn’t read into it too much.   
  
She doesn’t seem to. Instead, she starts walking to the far wall, talking over her shoulder. “Well, actually, I met Sun when he was doing a piece on Jozi. He needed my –my consent to include the pictures with any of me or my men in them.”   
  
She stops the, gesturing to a wall, and then Rafe realises that he’s looking at another black-and-white picture of men standing to attention. Pictured, Nadine is standing in front of them, her back to the camera, a bloody bandage of her upper arm, an assault rifle hanging loosely from a strap on her back.  
  
“This was the only one that I let him use.” She explains. “Not all press is good press, you know?”   
  
Nadine is already starting to move on to another piece, but Rafe is still fully taken in. The picture says so much about her: the quiet, proud posture she holds, and how every man pictured is looking at her with intense respect. Enticed, he looks for a second longer, and then follows her around to a new shot of the Johannesburg landscape.   
  
At her side once more, he has to ask. “What are you going to do –about Shoreline?” A stewardess pliés to take his empty glass and refresh his drink, pirouetting away into the crowd. “You can’t exactly just--”  
  
Nadine interrupts him, calmly. “I have some level-headed men who I trust can take the legwork from here for a little while.” She pushes her hair outs of the side of her face, slightly, and nods, “Can’t come soon enough. I’m so tired thesedays.”   
  
Somehow, he feels a little guilty at her remark. He nods and focuses on the champagne instead. Of course she’s got a plan. Nadine always has a plan. It was stupid of him to assume otherwise. For now, all he can do is try to keep updated.   
  
They move on to a new piece. It’s another picture of the South African landscape. Nadine looks pleased by it, and Rafe wonders if she’s homesick.   
  
“What about after that?” He has to ask.   
  
Nadine looks at him, serious, but calm. “After what?”   
  
Suddenly embarrassed, he scratches the nape of his neck in a gesture of self-comfort. “I mean, where will you be staying?” To himself, he knows that he’d like her to stay in New York. There’s no shortage of work, or things to do. It seems so logical that he simply says it. “Stay in New York.”   
  
Nadine scoffs at that. “I’m not sure I’m exactly the New York type.” She makes her way to another wall, and then, at his confusion, she adds, “You know –rich?”   
  
Rafe is quick to tell her, “Money isn’t a problem.”   
  
She shakes her head. “No.” A small pause –maybe a sigh. “I don’t want your money, Rafe.”   
  
Now, that is profoundly stupid. Rafe can’t help but laugh at that. Of course she wants his money –everybody does. And it makes perfect sense for her to accept some help. He coughs out, “Nadine, don’t be ridiculous--”  
  
She looks at him like _he’s_ the one being strange. “What do you care?” She looks at him as if she’s deeply amused, daring him to prove her wrong. Daring him to be the vulnerable one, for once.   
  
Rafe wasn’t counting on that.    
  
Somewhere very deep and private –only just emotionally conscious, he cares profoundly. And not in the way he cares about anything else. No, it’s different. It’s like –for example, Rafe was never very comfortable sleeping next to other people. He still struggles, but it doesn’t stop him from wanting Nadine to stay in his bed.   
  
Even this exhibition, which he doesn’t even like very much, is somehow meaningful. Here is Rafe, in her private world: the way she chooses to spend her free time, and her friends. And there is Nadine, wanting him there.   
  
Rafe doesn’t say anything to that, for once out of witticisms. That’s an argument for another time.   
  
They wander around the gallery for a little longer, and the artist –Sun- brings a woman over to talk to Nadine. She’s probably another artist.   
  
Rafe knows when he’s a third wheel, and withdraws in search of another drink. He’s not looking to get drunk, but when he drinks enough, he gets this little click in his head that makes him less neurotic. He feels he’s earned that click. Taking another glass of champagne, he leans against a wall and reads over his emails, waiting for Nadine.   
  
Eventually, she returns, rubbing beneath one eye distractedly. “I think I’m done here.” She says. It’s a small gesture, but Rafe recognises it. In their first few months of doing this, if Nadine wasn’t looking for sex she’d just leave –no goodbye, no nothing. He doesn’t know if it is a solicitation or just good manners, but it means something to him nonetheless.   
  
As if testing her, Rafe asks, “Heading my way?”   
  
Nadine isn’t much for displays of any kind. With a simple, practical tone, she says, “Your place is closer.”   
  
She’s just being straightforward, right? Rafe’s chest shouldn’t be swelling with pride at the notion of it like some pathetic schoolkid with a crush.   
  
Reaching into his pocket, he hands her his valet stub. “Have them bring the car around. I’ll just be a second.” Pushing himself off of the wall, he nods to her. She looks momentarily confused, but does not ask about it. Rafe watches her walk out of the wall, noting once more her proud posture and her elegance.   
  
God, he can’t wait to be touching her.   
  
One she’s out of his line of sight, he finds Sun chatting to some other patrons and takes him aside, to where the shot of Nadine and her men is hanging.   
  
“How much for this one?” He asks, gesturing to it, purposefully bland. He doesn’t want to indicate that he likes it –or acknowledge why he likes it.   
  
“This one?” Sun says, obtusely, his eyes all lit up. “Oh, I don’t know. This one is my favourite, you know. And Miss Ross drove a hard bargain on what I was allowed to publish, but I specifically said--”  
  
Jesus Christ. Are they all like this? Impatient, Rafe waves a hand to silence him. “Just--” He sighs. “How much to buy it?”   
  
At that, Sun looks genuinely struck. As if getting his art into this place was a happy accident, and that nobody has offered to buy a damn photograph from him before. Well, judging by the rest of the pictures, Rafe wouldn’t be surprised.   
  
Stammering, but well-meaning, Sun says, “W-well, I don’t--”  
  
Rafe doesn’t have all fucking evening. Feeling as if he’s aged during the conversation, he digs out a business card and hands it to the other man. “Let me know when you have a price.”   
  
Out front, the Bugatti is ready for him, and he hurries inside the car to avoid the falling snow. Nadine is at the wheel, having herself been mostly spared the cold. The moment he’s inside, she pulls away, and Rafe can’t help the very slight giddiness he feels as they set off. He tells himself it’s the trash champagne, but really, he cannot deny the excitement in his chest to have her come home with him.   
  
Nadine interrupts the thought. “What kept you?” She asks, with innocuous curiosity.   
  
Rafe doesn’t know what to say. As if embarrassed, he lies. “I had to take a quick call. Nothing important.”   
  
Thankfully, she doesn’t press, and they pull up outside of his apartment building. Another valet parks the car. The doorman ushers them inside with a warm ‘good evening’. They make their way into the elevator, where it is warmer, still, and the moment Nadine takes off her scarf, Rafe is upon her.   
  
He can’t help himself. The skin of her neck is warm and he recognises the smell of her, pressing his lips to her, kissing, and then nipping, unwilling to put distance between them. One arm snakes up her back and pulls her body closer to his, and the other is grasping the back of her neck, gently, but with a possessiveness.   
  
Not that Nadine minds at all. She makes a gentle noise of surprise when he begins his ministrations, and then leans into him, effectively melting at the point of contact. He feels one of her hands in the lengths at the back of his hair, tugging harshly so that his face jerks upwards –and then she is kissing him.   
  
Her lips are so warm. It’s gorgeous. Some of her hair tickles the side of his face –he doesn’t care. Nadine nudges forward with her foot and pushes him again one of the elevator walls, and then they are so close that he can feel her hips against his. She bites his bottom lip, coarsely, and then pulls back. Breathless, perhaps a little blushed –Rafe has never seen anything he’d like more.   
  
“Jesus.” He purrs, deeply. “Anyone’d think you missed me.”   
  
She smirks up at him with dark eyes and one hand palms him through his pants. “Drop dead.” She says.   
  
“That’s the spirit.”   
  
Nadine takes his lips again, and grinds against him in a deliberate, tantalizing movement. He can feel himself getting hard already. The doors of the elevator open, but neither of them even seem to notice. Pinned as he is, Rafe can only continue to enjoy the divine agony of her like this –pleasing, but moreish. He wants more, and he gets what he wants.   
  
In a sudden drive for dominance, he pushes her back, forcing her against the other wall so that he back is to him and he is pressed against her, holding her wrists, his breath tremulous and hot in her ear. Hard against her like this, it occurs to him how long it’s been since he was last inside of her. God, he bites her again, practically growling.   
  
She isn’t a woman to give up the notion of power for long. Nudging him backwards, somehow, she pulls him into her again as they walk backwards out the elevator, into his cloakroom. Then Rafe is the only against a wall –a coathanger digging into the vertebrates on his neck. He barely notices. Nadine bites him again –and her other hand is carding through his hair passionately. He barely has enough executive function to focus on all of her.   
  
Without even withdrawing, he feels her shift to take off her shoes, but that’s as far as she gets. He drags her –hands on hips, fingers tight around her, towards the couch. God, at the rate they’re going, and how hard he already is, he doubts there’s much point or chance of a bed tonight. Rafe doesn’t care –he can’t care about anything but Nadine right now, soft beneath his hands, and fucking gorgeous.   
  
Suddenly short on breath, he lays her down hard on the black leather and climbs on top of her immediately. Nadine is breathing her, too, and the rise of her chest is suddenly too much to resist. He strokes the base of her collar, and then with both hands, he tears open the shirt she’s wearing. Buttons fall down the side of her body, onto the floor, onto the leather.   
  
Rafe grins at her displeasure. “I’ll buy you a new one.” He whispers.   
  
For her part, Nadine just yanks his hair again, pulling him towards her to eliminate the distance. As they are kissing, she leans up she he makes quick work of the bra she’s wearing, hurrying to get it over her arms, parting for a second to take her in.   
  
He nearly whimpers at the sight of her. Nearly.   
  
He puts his mouth to better use, instead, and takes one of her breasts into his mouth, enticed by how warm her skin is. A hand moves to the other one, and he sucks and nips ardently until her nipples are raised to hard, pink, peaks. He breaths against them, taking a second, wanting nothing more than to watch them bounce as he fucks her.   
  
Nadine is apparently, of a similar mind, both of her hands moving to his belt. He can’t wait to take them off –he can’t wait at all, in fact, desperate to have her then and there. He withdraws only for a second, to help her with her trousers. Panting, he looks down at her, taking in the natural curve of her body and letting out a low breath, as if preparing himself.   
  
Tentatively, or suddenly cruel, he rubs his thumb gently against her panties. She feels wet, and warm, and Rafe feels practically dizzy, biting his lower lip, driven suddenly mad with a desire to taste her.   
  
He feels her hand on the front of his shirt, tugging him down, and with a word she commands him, with an arresting, breathless quality to her voice. “Rafe.” She whispers. God, that’s all she needs to say.   
  
Shaking from anticipation, he takes himself in hand, hard, his tip already wet with precum, and gives himself a few strokes. Nadine raises her hips and takes off her panties, and her eyes find his, dark and hungry. He leans on one hand and presses himself against her. God, she’s warmer than he imagined, and so fucking inviting. He has to take a second.   
  
Unable to wait any longer, he presses into her, and can’t begin to stop himself in crying out. He barely notices Nadine inhale slightly, tensing.   
  
“Oh, Jesus--…” He practically whines. It feels –God, she feels so good, so warm and inviting and tight that he needs a moment to adjust to the sensation. He hasn’t even started moving and he already feels weak at the joints. He wouldn’t be surprised if she can feel his pulse, he’s so hard.   
  
Nadine is the first to move against him, but on her back as she is, it’s difficult. He takes it as his cue, pulling out of her slowly, trying to savour every second, thrusting back in, not quickly, but deeply, trying to bury himself as far in her as possible. For a few seconds, he keeps it up, but feels the nails on her hand on his bicep dig suddenly in.   
  
“Rafe,” She purrs, again, in an almost angry tone, as if his ministrations are unbearable at that pace. The slight pain of her grip only is intense. He drops to his elbows and pushes in harder, this time, faster. He builds his pace, growing more and more delirious with the feeling of it until he can feel her legs pulling his hips in closer, demanding more.   
  
Every inch of him is burning white-hot, hotter than magnesium. He groans, despite himself, keeping his pace desperately. She’s so fucking heavenly, clinging to him, tight around him, her ankles crossed on his lower back so that he is as close and deep as possible. Rafe drops his head into the crook of her neck, breathing hard out of his mouth. He wants to fuck her until she cannot move –until he has filled her up.   
  
One of Nadine’s arms comes between them and he watches her hand go down to her cunt. Her shoulder moves as she plays with herself, her arm pushing her breasts closer together. She’s breathing just as hard as he is. He can feel it on his neck.   
  
At some point, she whimpers again, and Rafe cannot bear it any longer, leaning on one hand to snatch her hand up, forcing her fingers into his mouth, tasting her at last.   
  
He honest-to-god moans around her fingers. God, she tastes so fucking sweet, and she feels so good and Rafe fears he isn’t going to last for much longer. God, he wishes he could do this all night. He wishes he never had to stop.   
  
His thrusts become more erratic. He desperately wants her to finish first –to feel her tighten around him. But he knows he can only hold on for so much longer. He bites her neck hard and keeps on, trying to ignore the overwhelming tightness in his stomach.   
  
“I’m –I’m gonna--” Nadine bites his neck, then, hard, and the sensation is so powerful that he can’t stop himself. Hips stuttering, coughing out a moan, he cums hard in three hot spurts. She wrings out every last bit of orgasm from him, tightening, rutting against him until he’s entirely spent.   
  
Red-faced and utterly out of breath, he drops against her chest and takes a few seconds to collect himself. He’d be embarrassed if it hadn’t been literal weeks since their last tryst.  Nadine is still against him, and he can hear her breathing as it settles. It’s seems so intimate that Rafe feels he wants to look at her, then.   
  
He turns his head to look at her, watching as he withdraws shakily from her. She seems to exhale at the loss, but is otherwise still. He should clean himself at the very least, or get a glass of water –or even just go to bed, but he knows the moment will be over if he moves, and for some reason, wishes for it to last, even just a little.   
  
He must be the alone in that wish, or perhaps Nadine is just very good at hiding it, because she pushes his chest with a hand, and murmurs, “Get off.” It’s not said nastily –and to her credit, it can’t be comfortable having him lay on her like this. So he moves.   
  
He’s shaky to stand, steadying himself on the back of the couch before walking down the hall to the master bathroom.   
  
He cleans himself with a washcloth and takes off his shirt, still buttoned, but covered in sweat. He leaves it where it is on the floor, knowing that a housekeeper will get it at some point. As he’s washing his face, as if to wake up, he looks in the mirror, then, and notes the dark marks on his neck. Gifts, he thinks, derisively.   
  
He turns his head to look at them again and smirks. Usually, Rafe dislikes being marked. He likes to think of marking others as a sign of possession –and rejects the idea of belonging to anyone else outright.   
  
Does that mean Nadine belongs to him? She’s sporting marks of her own, after all. It’s almost comical to think it. Rafe doesn’t suppose anybody could ever own her. She isn’t that kind of woman, he doesn’t think. And yet –to himself, somewhere, he think she’d like her to. For her to stay, at least, in the city with him.   
  
After he’s clean, he heads back into the sitting area, and tries not to let that thought creep into his voice when he says, “I know it’s late for coffee--”  
  
As he comes around the sofa, he notes that she is asleep, and he lets the rest of the sentence go unsaid. For the second time in as many weeks, there she is, looking peaceful, within reach of him. She really must have been tired.   
  
Rafe is only slightly crestfallen. He allows himself to look at her, for a few seconds, sitting on the edge of the couch again and watching her breathe. Primarily, he gazes in admiration. Her body is so powerful, and yet so elegant, and here while she’s sleeping, he is free to look all he wants, imagining that she will stay. Imagining coming home to this –and then looking away, swallowing.  
  
He frowns at the discomfort in his chest, and reasons that he’s probably just still a little winded.   
  
Nadine is still sleeping, and he has a few more minutes to sweetly pretend, before she wakes and –and leaves, probably. He hates to admit that she’s smart enough to get out while she can. That she has the power to just leave.   
  
God, he hates being left.   
  
Brazen, then, he stands back up and lean over her body. All he wants, in that moment, is for her to stay, even just in the apartment, even just for the night. So, he leans down, his lips gracing her cheek ever so slightly as he gets his arms underneath her. He’s just started to lift her when her eyes open, and she pulls away sleepily.   
  
“What are you doing?” She demands to know. How can she be so powerful like this: half-asleep, in his arms?   
  
Swallowing, trying to play cool, Rafe cannot fathom another explanation for his actions. He withdraws from her, proudly, stupidly, and says, “Moving you. You’ll stain the leather.”   
  
One of her hands comes up to rub her eyes, and she simply says, “Okay.” Tiredly, she rises, and walks off down the hall.   
  
Amazingly, she goes to the bedroom.   
  
Rafe has to wonder if she bought the lie remotely, or if she’s just humouring him. Hell, what does it matter? He takes a minute to just stand there. He doesn’t want to seem eager by following her to bed. One hand goes to cover his mouth for a second, and when he moves it, he’s daring to smile.   
  
Coughing, straightening out his face, he walks down the hall, and pauses at the bedroom door for just a second. His chest still feels strange, but otherwise, his breathing is fine.   
  
Inside, Nadine is already under the sheets, her eyes closed. She isn’t asleep, he doesn’t think, but doesn’t react when he comes inside, shutting the door, and slipping in the sheets next to her.   
  
The room is bathed in darkness. It’s so dark, in fact, that Rafe can barely make out the shape of her. He waits for his eyes to adjust to the light, hearing distant traffic from outside one of the ajar windows. As the black turns into shades of differing grey, he makes out where she is, turned on her left, her breathing deep and level, indicating sleep.   
  
Rafe moves quietly across the bed, until he is next to her. With a small movement, careful not to wake her, he puts his arm across her body, and sighs. He hasn’t slept well in weeks, and it’s only then that it seems to catch up with him.   
  
Suddenly tired, he relaxes against the pillow and exhales. He feels divinely exhausted, and closes his eyes, he thinks, just for a moment.   
  
Just for a second.   


 


	4. collapsing homes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for: drug use! 
> 
> y'all are the real mvps. the three of you that read this, i love you. 
> 
> join me in this downward spiral @ jfk-d.tumblr.com. tell me how smol u think rafe's dick is #realquestions

Rafe is blinded when he wakes.  
  
Furious, white light is streaming in from the window, and he turns onto his side to shield, his eyes, groaning. He manages to turn away from the light, but only because there is room. Only because the bed’s empty.  
  
Confused, with a headache, he looks around the room in confusion, as if expecting to find Nadine somewhere else. Outside, it’s a complete whiteout. Rafe has never seen this much snow in November. If she’s not in the bedroom, she must at least be in the apartment. No sane person would travel out into that.  
  
He rises, grumpily, lamenting that he’s only been awake for a minute and he’s already disappointed. Dressing minimally in underwear, he consoles himself with the promise of a strong drink, and the greatest likelihood that Nadine is already in his kitchen, or sitting room, busying herself in some way.  
  
It’s not like he hasn’t woken to that before. After all, Nadine is a military girl. She has this awful tendency to rise at sun-up, and for some senseless reason, needs convincing to stay in bed. Rafe doesn’t understand it in the slightest. What reason could anybody have for waking so early? Sleep is good –golden, even.  
  
He walks down the hall and towards the sitting room, where the evidence of last night greets him –underwear and shirt buttons scattered over a portion of his longest couch. There’s no sign of Nadine, still, but seeing her bra strewn over the arm of the loveseat only makes his desire to find her greater.  
  
Down the hall, he finds the kitchen empty, but puts some coffee on anyway, his head still sore from –from something, he’s sure.  
  
As he’s taking a sip, he hears a door down the hall open and steps out.  
  
There, he finds her.  
  
Nadine looks genuinely surprised to see him. She looks a little pale, but rested, and the sight of that makes Rafe somehow glad. He’s glad that she can sleep easy, here. He’d love nothing more than for her to continue doing so. But –alas, no, she is dressed in the same trousers as last night, and a plain shirt that belongs to Rafe. Well, she can’t wear the blouse from last night, buttonless as it is now.  
  
Not that he minds in the slightest. It’s an incredibly endearing sight.  
  
“Morning,” Rafe says, his voice rusty. He eyes her relative put-togetherness with suspicion. “Heading somewhere?”  
  
She’s obviously aware that it’s a loaded question. In fact, Nadine doesn’t even bother to side-step it. “Out, in fact.” She says.  
  
Rafe doesn’t want to watch her go. He gets that breathless feeling again and steps further out into the wall, into her path. He looks away and tries to fathom something to make her leaving seem as foolish as it is. “You don’t –don’t want any breakfast? Coffee?”  
  
Hardly. Nadine raises a hand to her mouth in distaste as if just the proposition of either offends her senses. “No, that’s alright.” She says, and it baffles him as to how she intends to function until she clarifies. “If I have anything, I’ll be sick.” It takes him a second to realises that she’s referring to –morning sickness, he thinks it’s called. Christ, he’d practically forgotten that winning detail.    
  
He tries a different approach, because he wants a different outcome. “Well, you’ll never catch a cab out there. It’s a goddamn blizzard.” He takes a sip of coffee, then, and it burns his tongue slightly. He’s doesn’t let on, and studies her face carefully when he says, “Stay here until the snow clears, at least.”  
  
Nadine looks at him then as if he’s transparent. There’s enough scorn in her gaze that it’s practically rude. “I’ll take my chances.” She says.  
  
Wounded, then, he lowers the cup and rolls his eyes, muttering at the floor. “I guess I should be grateful you’re even bothering with goodbye.”  
  
Her shoulders drop for a second and she sighs with clear annoyance. Then, she comes forward and puts a gentle hand on the bottom of his rib cage. “Look, I enjoyed myself last night.” He notes the slight movement of her thumb that results in her stroking his chest, slightly. “Don’t ruin it.”  
  
It hardly consoles him. Rafe takes the hand on his chest and peels it off, scowling at her. “Ruin it how?” He swallows, trying not to look so damn affected. What does he care –really? And why should he? For god’s sake, it’s not as if she seems to care nearly as much.  
  
Nadine doesn’t bother to answer him. She starts off down the hall again. He hadn’t thought her serious, and then Rafe is walking after her, chasing her like so many times in just as many days. “What’s the goddamn hurry, anyway? Traffic won’t even be moving yet.”  
  
She turns around, her face set in this unimpressed look that Rafe couldn’t penetrate if he wanted to. “I have an appointment to make. I don’t want to be late.”  
  
There’s no reasoning with her. Rafe usually likes her defiance and independence, but not when it overspills into difficulty. He’s far more used to getting his way than this, and it’s leaving a sour taste in his mouth. As she’s pulling on her shoes, he waves a hand, desperately. “At least let me call you a car.”  
  
Bent over, slightly, slipping on the other shoe, Nadine doesn’t bother to look at him. “That won’t be necessary.” Then, standing, she takes her scarf from the cloakroom floor and looks at him. “Take care of yourself.” She says, without any real care.  
  
Rafe just –he just lets her go, unsure of what else there is to do. He watches her puts on her coat, and then she goes and leaves him alone in the apartment. It’s –it’s quietly devastating, to be honest. When she’d come home with him last night he’d imagined a morning in bed, ignoring the snow, having breakfast brought to his door, and going down on her. He’s imagined waking before her and getting to hold her.  
  
He’d missed her body. And she’s already fucking gone.  
  
Suddenly bereft, he sits down. He thought –he thought that they were on the same page. That they both wanted the same things from this. Now, he’s not even sure if Nadine wants this. She clearly doesn’t feel the same way as Rafe –if she even feels at all, and Rafe should have expected as much from Nadine and her whole Mrs Cold routine.  
  
If she just in this for sex? Not that sex isn’t great, and a part of it, but--…god, Rafe must have made the tragic misstep of thinking there was more to it than that.  
  
He focuses on finishing the coffee, alone in the sitting room. It’s still early morning, and so he just goes back to bed, no schedule, no company.  
  
Get your emotions in check, he tells himself as he lies there, frustratingly awake. One morning isn’t cause for a fucking crisis.  
  
-  
  
Later in the week, an old prep school invites him to some fundraiser.  
  
He spends the first half of the evening catching up, charming girlfriends and wives. The drinking is moderate, and things are nice, if not a little boring. He talks to some old acquaintances that invite him to the men’s room where he’s offered some ecstasy. That’s when the second half of the evening begins.  
  
Rafe enjoys E –it makes the air feel cleaner and the people more beautiful. God, it makes the club they end up in seem like heaven, and he feels amazing. Everything he says feels like some great cosmic secret, and every touch is heightened to the point of wonder. Strangers’ bodies rub against him in the crowd and the suit he’s wearing is gorgeous against his skin. It’s as if he can feel no pain –as if nothing bad can ever happen.  
  
Somebody gets him a hooker, and they end up kissing for nearly an hour just because the sensation of kissing is so much. She gives him a blowjob while the others do lines of coke but Rafe just wants to –to feel, or some bullshit.  
  
The blowjob is even too much, and he gets called a taxi –can you believe it, a cheap, nasty yellow taxi—so that he can get home. God, in the taxi Rafe is still tripping, feeling over the old leather, tantalised by it. He falls down in the snow outside of his apartment and lays there for twenty minutes, murmuring delightedly about how beautiful it looks.  
  
The doorman has to help him get into his own apartment, and Rafe tips him something like six hundred, or whatever’s in his top pocket.  
  
He ends up lying underneath the coffee table in his sitting room with Nadine’s split blouse next to him. Senses heightened, he breathes the smell of it in deliriously and thinks this is it, this is the meaning of it all –this is--!  
  
-  
  
The next day he comes to feeling all the positivity he’ll ever have was used up the night before.  
  
The come-down always takes a solid twenty-four hours or so. His hangover doesn’t help, either. He remains on the floor for a little while, feeling like he’s going to die, before he drags himself to his feet and goes down the hall to bed.  
  
He draws the blackout blinds and tries to get back to sleep. For the most part, it’s on-and-off. While he’s awake, he keeps his eyes shut and lays there, still. His tongue is literally dry and he feels both heavy and light-headed, all at once. Mostly, though, he feels depressed.  
  
The high doesn’t seem worth it, now. The sound of the traffic annoys him. Everything is making him feel on edge, or like dying. He lies there for four or five hours trying to soak up some rest and let the drug clear his body.  
  
When he feels well enough, he has a bottle of water, and showers. There are greasy papers in the hallway, and he shudders to recall eating some street food. Jesus, E can make anything seem out-of-this-world at the time.  
  
There’s an outstanding message from Nadine that he received early that morning, and only reads it as he’s drying himself off. It’s, amazingly, another invite.  
  
‘doing security at BONHAMS auction. 9pm tonight.’  
  
The state he’s in, Rafe can’t even feel joy that she wants to see him. He can’t feel anything but despair. He sinks back in to bed and thinks that everything is terrible, and that Nadine doesn’t really care about him and she’s only having a baby to spite him.  
  
He has an email from one of his assistants about a Mister Wai Sun Cheng, and a price of $15,000, and another email about a friend’s wedding.  
  
Mustering his strength, he emails back to tell his assistant to buy the damn thing and have it delivered to his apartment.  
  
He does not text Nadine. He falls asleep before he can.  
  
-  
  
Two days after, he finally feels normal again, and he flies out to Toronto. He spends a week discussing a Canadian expansion.  
  
It’s December by the time he lands back at New York, everything yells ‘christmas!’. The music is an assault, the colours too rich and violent, the faces grinning maniacally. Rafe calls a car before he’s even landed and has a scotch immediately when he gets home, just to recover.  
  
It’s only the afternoon, though, and that damn wedding dinner is in the evening. Rafe isn’t going to go alone. The New York crowd are vicious, and he wouldn’t be so foolish as to make a mistake that basic.  
  
Would it be strange to invite Nadine? After all, inviting her to a wedding has a certain –certain subtext that he doesn’t think she’d much like.  
  
Then again, having his child also has a pretty similar subtext, and she seems fine with that so far.  
  
The whole notion of it is so absurd and so profoundly ridiculous that he has to have another drink to calm down. Rafe knows, externally, objectively, that it’s his business. But with the way Nadine has carried herself and has talked about it, it’s as if it’s a far-off rumour happening to some other unlucky sap. Is that –is that her being merciful?  
  
Bewildered, he contacts her anyway with the event place and time.  
  
And amazingly, she says yes.  
  
Or, more to the point, she says ‘sparring til 5. Shower at yours first?’.  
  
Is there a combination of words to like more? Rafe hides his delight, despite being alone in the apartment. He goes for a swim to fill the time, and does a once-over in his bathroom mirror for good measure.  
  
Rafe generally likes his looks. They’re one of the few gifts from his mother that he actually likes –the blue-but-not-blue eyes, his fair complexion and his hair. He’d look dignified, he’s always thought, were it not for the slight frame and small stature of his father’s side. Even now that Rafe is older, and the advance of age had greyed parts of his hair, he still thinks he looks boyish.  
  
He’d hated that, as a younger man. Now what he wouldn’t give to look so damn young again.  
  
He comes into the sitting area as his intercom buzzes, and he has to doorman send Nadine up. In a second, the private elevator is opening, Rafe is hiding in the kitchen to seem unsentimental. From there, he can hear her take her coat off and deposit her shoes in the cloakroom, coming around the glass to the living room.  
  
He comes in to the same room, then, quietly. There she stands, brazen, her back to him, and Rafe feels his arms tense with a desire to touch her. Coatless, her skin still shines slightly with sweat, and she looks so unbelievably powerful. Rafe feels a fool for the slight seizing in his chest –the feeling he thought belonged to the other night. The one he’d forgotten.  
  
“Nadine.” He says, gently, but seriously, as if calling her by rank. He wishes there was something more intimate he could call her, but doubts she would tolerate that kind of nonsense.  
  
Turning, Nadine smiles. Her cheeks are lightly flushed from previous exertion, and her eyes look lively. It’s –Christ, it’s outstanding. He goes to touch her, but she holds up a hand to stifle the gesture.  
  
“You’ll want to keep your distance.” She says, playfully, slightly out of breath. “I still haven’t had a chance to shower.”  
  
Rafe jams his fists by his side and feels himself nod, slightly. Crestfallen, he gestures towards the kitchen instead and says, “You want a drink?”  
  
Nadine sits on the edge of the couch –the same one they’d fucked on over a week ago now, and cants her head slightly. “What d’you ‘ave?”  
  
He realises he’s staring at her –her neck, specifically, and goes into the kitchen to give himself a break. He opens the cupboard he keeps his cereal in and takes out a bottle of Garrison Brother’s Bourbon that goes down smoothly. He fishes out two glasses and calls out as he brings them in. “Bourbon okay?”  
  
He sets the glasses down on the coffee table before she stops him. “I can’t drink.”  
  
It takes a few seconds for him to process the information; but then after a beat, he gets it. It’s as if Rafe systematically deletes her pregnancy, for his own protection, and has to go through the pain of re-discovering it every time they meet.  
  
“More for me.” He says, distantly. With that in mind, he pours himself three fingers and takes a long drink. He feels he needs it.  
  
Hardly bereft, Nadine doesn’t ask for anything else to drink, probably noting his slight shift in tone, and dusts her lap as if to go. “I was going to shower.” She tilts her head again, towards the master bathroom down the hall. “Feel free to join me.”  
  
Drink or no drink, truth notwithstanding, Rafe will take any excuse to touch her. He’s been itching to since laying eyes on her –but doesn’t want to seem overeager. Nadine is always so –so much cooler about these things. She has the charm of the indifferent when it comes to their arrangement, even still. But Rafe’s hat is still very much in the ring –he still intends to pursue her.  
  
Nadine clearly know what she’s here for anyway, he clothes discarded in the hall. It’s torture to imagine her, naked, under the hot water, entirely his to behold. God, his chest hurts again and he’s starting to wonder if he doesn’t have a damn heart murmur with the way it’s been feeling lately. He waits there, in his seat, for as long as he can, and then when enough time feels as if it’s passed, and he can hear the water running, he rises and follows her.  
  
The hall floor is cold underneath his feet. Rafe’s lips are wet with anticipation as he slips through the open –oh, but open!- door, and into the bathroom.  
  
A clawfoot tub dominates part of the room, proudly in the center, bronze and enormous. The shower itself is a separate room of glass within the bathroom with a tantalising amount of room, and there he sees Nadine underneath the waterfall showerhead, her hair soaked to the back of her neck, her back to him once more.  
  
Both of her arms are in her hair, massaging, and he notes how powerful she looks. Her legs are thick and muscular, her form shapely and gorgeous. Rafe has already showered, and there would be no practical use, but he’s already half-hard just looking at her. He undresses quickly and pushes his hair back into some semblance of neatness before stepping in behind her.  
  
One bold hand comes to touch her back, and then curve around her chest to one of her breasts, finding her skin pliant and hot. It surprises her, slightly, and Nadine turns her head, humming gently at the touch. Rafe cannot help himself at all, overwhelmed, his other hand coming up to the base of her pretty neck.  
  
He wants to tell her, then, that he missed her, but all that comes out is, “Look at you.”  
  
At that, Nadine laughs, gently, and leans back against him. She’s so responsive. Her neck is exposed and Rafe goes to kiss her, soaking himself in the process, but caring not an inch. Pushing back against him, one of her hands reaches backwards to claw gently at the bottom of his stomach, then grasping loosely around his cock.  
  
Rafe bites her for that –and for the sake of not whining aloud.  
  
Over the roar of the water, her voice glides like steam. “You obviously know what you want.”  
  
“Oh?” Playfully, he likes at the lobe of her ear and grinds against her. Nadine doesn’t want to waste any time, it seems, and she continues to stroke him. With his own hands, Rafe is content just to take in her skin for a second, skimming down her sides, working his way up to teasing her.  
  
One of his hands glides down her stomach, and then he pauses.  
  
It’s different. She’s –she’s different. It’s only slight, and he hadn’t noticed even looking at her, but he can feel it. The change at the bottom of her stomach, firm, and ever-so-slightly distended. No more sweetly pretending: she really is pregnant.  
  
Noticing his apprehension, Nadine turns her head and smiles, “See something you like?”  
  
Rafe doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t think he can. All of his insides feel very cold, all of a sudden. Swallowing, mouth unexpectedly dry, his hands move away as if he’s touched a hot stove. Without thinking, he takes a tentative step back.  
  
“I –I have to--” He swallows again. The bathroom feels claustrophobic. Nadine is –is just the same to his eyes, but suddenly different in a way he doesn’t like. “I’ll just be a minute.”  
  
She turns, then, with this look of hurt in her sharp eyes, and Rafe is slow or dumb enough to look back. It doesn’t take a second for her to recognise the expression on his face –this fear. A fear she has seen before, in his eyes when confronted with a terrifying truth. A fear she thought they both had forgotten about.  
  
There must be fifty ways to leave a lover, and Rafe uses the same one every time.  
  
He abandons her to get dressed, clearing his head in the process. What good that does –standing in a room that Daphne had decorated, hiding from Nadine and the reality she brings with her company. He calms himself with another glass of bourbon and shaky hands button his shirt up, promising himself –it’s just the shock of it, that’s all.  
  
God, this wasn’t the plan remotely.  
  
The shower keeps running and Rafe does all he can to keep himself busy. He fishes out the pressed trousers from his closet, and then his white tuxedo jacket. His mostly-dry hair gets a comb through and he sets it back with some dapper dan before attempting the bowtie. The bastard black thing takes three attempts to sit right.  
  
Rafe looks put together in the mirror. Inwardly, he’s still calming himself.  
  
As he’s getting another glass and arranging the car (his newest Mercedes –never one to look at a loss in front of old friends), Nadine comes past the door and walks down the hall, naked, dripping onto the flagstone, completely inert to him. He staggers out of the room, then, peaking around into the kitchen where the water leads him.  
  
He watches her, a goddess –death on two fucking legs, as she bends to take a bottle of water from the fridge. Nadine turns and smiles to find him there. She must have known he was watching.  
  
“Something you want?” Rafe takes a few steps to advance on her, and only manages to grace her upper arm with his fingertips before she’s looking at him again, with a tight smile. She peels off his hand, and lets out a little laugh. “Oh, I don’t think so.”  
  
She dresses in the bedroom as he drinks in the living room, the subtext forbidding him from disturbing her. When she emerges, at last, she’s dressed in a wine-dark dress that flares forgivingly at the waist. Her jewellery is minimal and her eyes are dark and cat-like with eyeliner. God, he must look practically sorry next to her vibrant beauty.  
  
“Looking sharp.” Nadine says, one hand confidently wandering onto his shoulder and tracing a path to his bowtie.  
  
As she comes closer, he tries to look comfortable with a fixed smile of his own, but sounds breathless and taut when he murmurs, “Not so bad yourself, I suppose.”  
  
She’s close to him, standing in front of him, now, and even though they rarely kiss outside of sex, Rafe feels a terrible, embarrassing compulsion to hold her, and to kiss her.  
  
Lord, he would, too, if he wasn’t so convinced she’d scold him for it.  
  
The longer he looks at her, the stranger he feels, tight at the heart but cold there, too. What can he make of her away from the places she’s from –a work of art before his eyes, and something he doesn’t want to see, all at once.  
  
His left hand comes up, very hesitantly, to her side, and he looks off to the side, frowning. “What are we _doing_?”  
  
Nadine lets out a little laugh. “Going to a wedding, I thought.”  
  
That isn’t what he meant, and if he were braver, or even just a little bit brave, he’d ask why she is here. Is it the intimacy? The sex? Does she like who he is, or just the idea of him –or just how he makes her feel? And does she have any clue how she makes him feel? Maybe none of that matters. Maybe he just wants the courage to ask why she’d thrown away what they have here –a good thing, truly, for the sake of some feminine whim, no doubt.  
  
In a moment of terrible clarity, he realises that he must love her. Jesus, he loves her.  
  
But a baby is too hard a way of earning her.  
  
“By all means.” Rafe says, to break the silence, and Nadine leads.  
  
So they go.


	5. the avalanche

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title shamelessly taken from sufjan stevens. 
> 
> also --i love you all. mostly stanzie, but i love you all. seriously. i'd love to hear what you think!

In the car ride over, Rafe stays very quiet.   
  
Silently, he scrutinizes her as she stares out of her windows, watching New York pass them by. She must be considering the city. He is considering her.   
  
Or ‘them’. Rafe lives to hear Nadine say any derivative of that word –swelling with pride at every ‘we’ and ‘us’ and ‘our’ that he’s ever had the pleasure of hearing. Those words were never meant for more than two people, and now Rafe can feel the words slipping away from him until they belong to someone else.   
  
Nadine is comfortable with silence. She continues to gaze at the circuitous neon blurs that pass, and pays Rafe no mind as he looks at her. However small, he can note some change in her form –some difference, however small, that makes her a traitor. If he didn’t know her body so intimately, he would never know.   
  
Would that be worth it? Trading skin he knows so well for beautiful, merciful ignorance?   
  
It’s too late, anyway. He knows that as more time passes, she will change to become more and more of a stranger to him, and he almost can’t believe it. He wishes they had –had talked about it, at least a little more. Maybe then, he could have convinced her otherwise to see reason, for god’s sake.   
  
In the living room had been his chance –when she’d nodded, suddenly so small. But Rafe walked. He walked right out of the door, and now he has no clue is the window of opportunity is still open, or if it is instead nailed down.   
  
Nadine’s face offers no clues. Rafe tries to sound it out. “Are you drinking tonight?”   
  
She turns, frowning slightly. “I can’t.” She explains.   
  
Fuck. That’s definitely not a good sign.   
  
There’s a sudden feeling his chest that’s like collapsing. Like an avalanche, burying where his heart must be under some enormous pressure. It’s similar to that other feeling –the one he wishes weren’t there now, and it hurts. Rafe never asked for any of this –and for about a minute, he looks at her and hates her for this. For letting him get so stupidly involved.   
  
That is, until she sighs in levity, “I’m already dying for a manhattan.”   
  
Does that mean she is feeling something like –like regret? Even if it’s over something trivial, does that mean, for even just a second, that she wishes she weren’t pregnant?   
  
Sinking back, Rafe takes a breath. That damn window of opportunity is still open, he thinks, deliriously.  
  
And that will do for now, he thinks. That will more than do.   
  
-  
  
At some point in the night, Rafe is alone at his table, and a pretty looking guy maybe five years his junior comes around to the side of him. It’s a nice change from staring out at the crowd and listening absently to the band play.  
  
“You look lonesome,” The guy says, taking Rafe by surprise. He is pretty –a sharp kinda of nose and dark hair pushed out of his face. “Need a drink?”   
  
Rafe doesn’t outright reject the offer. He thinks, if it’s a come-on, he ought to at least get what he can out of it before letting the guy down easy. Lifting his hand with a lax wrist, he shows the guy his glass of bourbon, halfway finished. “I’m fine for a drink.”   
  
“If you’re sure.” The guy raises his hands slightly in a gesture of defeat. “Just looked like you could use one. You here alone?”   
  
Nadine is over by the bar, and Rafe had been watching her, internally miserable. She’s still there, waiting to be served, radiating light, looking somehow otherworldly. Soldier. Goddess. Mother, somehow.   
  
“Afraid not.” Rafe says, unsentimentally. He points his glass in her direction, Nadine an unmissable woman to his sight, eclipsing all other people alive in the room. “I’m here with my--”  
  
His what? His partner? After all this time, and given all that’s happening, is he even allowed to qualify for something more?  
  
“I’m here with my girlfriend.” He settles on, and that horrible tightness in his chest springs back into life like a barbed wire snare. Only now he recognises the feeling for what it is, and then immediately drinks to try to bury it with alcohol. “Maybe next time, though?”   
  
He smiles, then –not suggestively, but it slips out. How can he help it? The stranger leaves him to it, and Rafe gets to watch Nadine cross the room with a fresh drink in her hand. He gets to pretend, before she’s next to him, that she really is his girlfriend –that she loves him, and that she belongs to him, and that out of all the other people in just New York alone, his is the company she seeks out.   
  
She comes up next to him and sets down the drink at the high table Rafe is leaning on, looking slightly puzzled.   
  
“What was that all about?” She asks, with what sounds like genuine concern or interest in her voice. Rafe could just be wishful, though.   
  
“Nothing.” He says, dismissively. It feels like a secret, guilty pleasure –but it’s probably desperately obvious. She doesn’t pry, and they both watch the other guests mingle and crowd the main floor. It’s silent between them, but comfortable. He wants to hook an arm around her and stroke the bare skin of her arms, so it genuinely takes him aback when she drops her head against his shoulder slightly.   
  
“I’m so out of place here.” She says, with a slight laugh. “I think I’m the only one here who isn’t a millionaire.”   
  
“Or married to one.” He quirks an eyebrow, and smiles again. It’s unintentional: some unexpected side-effect of being near her. Lord, Rafe isn’t used to recognising this feeling. He feels as helpless and intolerable as a smitten schoolgirl with a crush.   
  
Still, there they are, silent together, comfortable. With her head on his shoulder. Nadine seems to content to people-watch, for a second, and Rafe manages go turn his head covertly enough to watch her. Her lipstick is subtle, and he wants it on his collar and his chest. As he’s watching her, the band strikes up with a new number. Something soft and swaying that rings a few bells in the back of Rafe’s mind.   
  
He looks at her and considers his odds.   
  
“Do you want to dance?” He leans down to whisper it, so nobody will be able to hear his potential rejection. His likely rejection.   
  
Nadine lifts her head off of him and turns to look incredulous, but playful. “Seriously?”   
  
Fuck it, he thinks to himself. If he’s going to play house with her, he might as well go all the way. “Seriously.” He murmurs, in a glib tone, looking at her with serious eyes.   
  
Nadine laughs at him, gently. She dips her head. Then, waiting a second for the punchline, she shrugs.   
  
“Okay.” She smiles, looking back up at him. “I’ll humour you this once.”   
  
Humour him she does. A minute later and they are, in fact, dancing.   
  
Two hours later, and she’s in his lap in the back of the Mercedes as the driver glides through half-known streets.   
  
Three hours later and he’s inside her as she rides him on his California king bed, one of his fingers in her mouth, watching her bounce in heady, delirious delight. They’re both asleep four hours or so after they dance. Rafe drifts off exhausted and breathless, looking over at her before his eyes close, his lips on the back of her neck.   
  
_I love you_ , he wants so ardently to say. _Be mine. Belong to me. Stay here_.   
  
But he says nothing.   
  
Nadine is already asleep.   
  
-  
  
He wakes to singing. To festive little words ‘it’s that time of year, when the world falls in love…’  
  
It isn’t abrupt or loud, pattering like rain from the en suite, and he listens mindlessly for a few seconds with his eyes still closed before he realises who is doing the singing.   
  
Who else? He hears the tap run for a few seconds, disrupting the melody, before Nadine’s gentle voice and footsteps draw closer to the bed once again. The sheets rustle as she climbs back into the bed, next to him, and Rafe turns into the pillow to hide the look of pleasure that overcomes him.   
  
She continue to sing, sat up, reading something on her phone, low and subtle but undeniably pretty. For a few seconds, he just listens, but can’t stay lying there forever, feigning sleep as she murmurs ‘every song you hear, seems to say merry christmas’.   
  
Gently, Rafe turns onto his side and grumbles. “It’s December ninth.”   
  
A little startled, but otherwise unperturbed, Nadine places her phone on the night stand and sinks back into the sheets, “Don’t tell me you’re a Grinch on top of your winning personality.” She smiles, coolly. They’re face-to-face, now, the tips of their noses just barely touching.   
  
“Not a Grinch.” Rafe murmurs, still in the process of waking up. All of that bourbon has made his head a little foggy, but he feels no worse for wear. “Just a scrooge.”   
  
Nadine rolls her eyes and shifts again to find comfort. “Well, someone clearly loves you.” And Rafe’s heart peeks at her out of his eyes for a second before the suggestion is put to bed. “You got a package this morning. Looks like a canvas.”   
  
“What?” Rafe is at a genuine loss, for a second. He’s not expecting any presents. Mother is too dead to give gifts, and even if Father weren’t old as all hell and an utter bastard to boot, he wouldn’t go to all the trouble of sending something.   
  
Then he remembers –the photograph. The canvas of Nadine and her soldiers.   
  
Nadine bumps his nose, playfully, and asks, “Were you expecting something else? The ghost of Christmas past, maybe?” One of her feet –shockingly cold feet, he might add—runs up his leg and causes him to flinch.   
  
“Hilarious.” He mutters, but smirks anyway. Her charm is unavoidable, especially like this: in his bed, naked and divine. “No –it’s just something for the guest room.”   
  
Nadine doesn’t pay much attention to the lie. She yawns, and he can feel her toes curl just like they do when he goes down on her. The reminder is a delight. “So it’s not a gift, then?” One of her hands comes up to rub her eye tentatively, and then she’s looking at him again. “Don’t tell me you forgot to get me something.”   
  
Rafe barks out a little laugh. “I’m not the gift-giving type.”   
  
She kicks him gently under the sheets. “Oh, cheer up.” Yawning again, she sighs. “Or didn’t you celebrate Christmas in your _billionaire_ household?”   
  
It’s a fair point. He’s aware that things are different when you can’t just buy or ask for anything you want at any time in the year. It wasn’t exactly a celebration so much as a chore, mostly.   
  
“I celebrated –but not in a billionaire’s house.” The words come easily. There’s a cool comfort in telling Nadine about things –personal things. One that didn’t used to be there. “I used to stay with my mother in El Paso most years. She wasn’t all that wealthy.”  
  
Nadine looks at him, sceptically. She props herself up on her arm. “What _–just_ a millionaire?”   
  
It makes him laugh. “Sadly, just a millionaire.” He concedes. Realising it must sound wonderful, Rafe tries to explain himself. “You know, growing up with money isn’t as great as you _think_ it is.”   
  
He’s not sure if that just makes things worse. Nadine outright laughs, and then one of her hands comes up to his face, rough with stubble. “Oh, poor little rich boy.” Her thumb strokes his cheek gently until Rafe smiles, too (though he’s smiling at the sight of her, and not the pejorative). “Really, what’s the worst gift you ever received?”   
  
He pulls away from her touch a little, frowning. “Jesus, I don’t know.” His shoulders shrug. “A horse, probably.”   
  
Nadine laughs again. Under any other circumstances, Rafe would savour the sunniness of the sound, but there’s no punchline to this particular story. “A horse? Like a racehorse?”   
  
Rafe’s smile is gone, momentarily. He looks at some corner of the sheets when he speaks. “Just a regular horse. A Friesian called Captain.”  He swallows, very gently, and shrugs again. “It was Mother’s favourite.”   
  
It doesn’t do to dwell on it. Outwardly, he knows he must look despicably spoiled to her, looking so damn tragic over a horse. But it’s not the horse –it’s the fact that Rafe had been seventeen, and Mother had limped out with him to the barn on christmas morning to present Rafe with the damn thing.   
  
(It’s the fact that Mother had died three months later. )  
  
Shaking the memory off of his back, Rafe hitches up on his elbow to match Nadine, and inhales, looking at her. “And you? Did you and the other kids just get a lump of coal?”   
  
“Something like that.” Nadine is studying his face intently, and he realises that she can probably see the unresolved remorse that he’s trying to hide. If she does, she lets it pass.   
  
Rafe needs a distraction, and she looks so damn good that he has to kiss her, then, sloppily and on the nose, before she lifts her chin and then they are kissing. They’re kissing and she stayed the night and he is happy, he thinks.   
  
When they part, Rafe pulls her body close to his and they spoon. Nadine faces the other wall and he gets to smell her hair and feel her soft skin against him. It’s such a wonderful gesture, but soon, they’ll have to get up and face the day, and that won’t do to Rafe’s mind at all. He wants to give her something lasting.   
  
After a while, he speaks. “Well, what do you want this year?”   
  
She sounds surprised. “From you?” he nods against her shoulder, and Nadine sighs, silent for a few seconds, perhaps at a loss. “Nothing.” She says, vaguely. “I don’t need anything.”   
  
Rafe frowns, a little baffled. “I didn’t ask you what you needed.”   
  
She turns her head to catch his eye, and smirks to him. “I don’t want anything, then.”   
  
“Really?” It seems a ridiculous thing to say to Rafe. He’s always had near-limitless flexibility, and access to power, figureheads, money –the works, and there is always something he wants. Always something he feels is missing. Never once in his life has he felt truly contented.   
  
Nadine remains on her side and pulls his arm over her like it’s another blanket, and he can feel her hand proudly resting on her stomach.   
  
“I have everything I want.” He bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from saying something stupid he’ll regret. It’s a reflex at this point. Her hand doesn’t move any, reminding Rafe which side she’s on, before she sighs, “I’m going back to Jozi for Christmas anyway.”   
  
Wait—what?  
  
“ _What_?” Rafe feels himself tense up at the prospect. “When?” Really, he wants to ask ‘ _why didn’t you say sooner?_ ’ or ‘ _why wouldn’t you stay? Why wouldn’t you stay right here with me?_ ’ but can’t find the humility for either of them. He also can’t find the courage, convinced already that he knows the outcome.   
  
Still In his arms, but now so far away, Nadine speaks calmly. “Flying out at the end of next week.”   
  
God, that’s no time at all. How is he supposed to convince her to stay in just a week? That’s no time at all –not between scheduled meetings and his own damn arrangements. And even if he were free, would she even see him? Would she even be open to the prospect of New York?   
  
A week. Jesus Christ. There’s not even time to put thought into a damn gift for her.   
  
In such a state of shock, Rafe actually gets out of bed. He extricates his arms from around her warm, soft body and slips out of the sheets, onto the cold floor, reaching for the robe that hangs on one poster.   
  
It’s been such a fucking wonderful morning, he thinks. There’s no sense in sullying it now.   
  
“I’m just gonna put some coffee on.” He says, blandly, and leaves her in bed.   
  
In the kitchen, the moment he’s alone, he takes three plates out of the top cupboard and throws them onto the floor, shattering them. He takes another, in a sudden fit of rage, and shatters it on the edge of the granite worktop. Ceramic and china are scattered across the worksurface and floor –and now there’s not a single safe space for his bare feet.   
  
From down the hall, he hears Nadine ask. “Everything okay?”   
  
Still tight with rage, Rafe takes in a very slow, deep breath and lets it out gradually. The sharp angle of his elbow and the tautness of his fists slowly relaxes as he breathes.   
  
If she goes, it won’t be forever. It will be a few weeks, at most, and even still, he has time. She could be convinced. And even if she couldn’t –Jesus, she’s in his bed right now, with skin that demands touching and a body that demands worship.   
  
He calls back in a very level voice. “Everything’s fine. I won’t be a minute.”   
  
-  
  
Two days later, his assistant calls him to tell him that it’s been purchased.   
  
An engraved colt with pearl grips. Her gift.   
  
His assistant –the one who’s name he can never remember, tells him it will be delivered, appropriately packaged, as soon as possible.   
  
As soon as he gets that email, he texts her, feeling bold and somehow up to the prospect of rejection.   
  
_‘dinner on Friday? At Per Se?_ ’ He asks her.   
  
And she says. _‘seven is fine’._  
  
Nervously, he imagines her opening it three or four times –picturing a curt, practical nod but hoping for a delighted smile, and then a kiss. She’ll probably open it an put it to one side with a polite thanks and some appreciation, but Rafe dreams that she’ll pick it up, and admire it, and tell him how she loves it. How well he must know her.   
  
If he wanted overwrought displays of emotion, he’s certainly picked the wrong woman. She loves to stick to her Mrs Cold routine –it’s her nature. Rafe knows he could buy her every single star in the sky, and she’d still react the same.   
  
So why does he think he can change that?  
  
-  
  
The gift arrives on the Wednesday. Cutting it a little close for his taste.   
  
He leaves it, wrapped, on the cloakroom shelf, and instead unwraps his first gift. The canvas still I =n the hall.   
  
There’s a secret delight to see the picture again. He likes it even more than when he first saw it, taking in the curve of her body and power of her stature. Even her blood is a rich, velvety sort of colour.   
  
There it is, in his hands, not for all of New York to see in some gallery full of idiots, but here, for his eyes only. He looks at it and feels more intimate and vulnerable than during most of the sex he’s ever had. God, the way he feels to look at her is so –so overcoming, and so almighty that it’s a little frightening.   
  
Rafe enjoys it, like some wrong hushed-up, for only ten minutes or so, before he feels he has to outrun the shame of such vulnerability. After ten minutes, he wraps it back up, and hides it in the back of the guest closet.   
  
-  
  
Reckless winter makes it’s way overnight.   
  
From Staten Island to the Upper West side –and by the time he wakes on Friday morning, nothing is moving. Out of the window, the streets are so densely snowed under that parked cars seem to be hiding, and there are barely any pedestrians in sight. News reports talk about some houses literally being snowed under –and Rafe’s never been gladder to be safe and sound, on the old 7 th floor.   
  
It’s early in the morning yet –but the snow is still falling at an alarming rate. He gets dressed and keeps an eye on the weather as well as the news. He can video conference most of the day’s meetings.   
  
But he can’t afford to miss dinner.   
  
The forecast looks grim. He spends two hours on the first call, and only has seven minutes to enjoy his salmon lunch before the second. What a way to spend most of his day, for God’s sake –arguing with one his R&D guys who is grounded at Denver.   
  
His call finishes at around four and he takes his time to shower, having earned it. As blustery and freezing as it is outside, Rafe could be on a different planet: hot under the water, the tension boiling out of his system. He has no worries of transport or travel, and enjoys the freedom while it lasts, letting his mind wander.   
  
For a second, he thinks there’s not much at all to complain about in his life until he recalls the last time he stood where he is, exploring Nadine’s body and finding himself a stranger in a town he recognises. Rafe knows he could probably talk her out of going home if he picks the right moment. Talking her out of the pregnancy looks like less of a sure thing.   
  
His minds unravels that thought like a spool of thread, unwilling to investigate the source immediately. For a second, he tries to imagine his life had Daphne been of a different constitution. If she had decided she wanted his child –which she didn’t, and that’s fine—he or she would be nearly six. Able to talk, and walk, and think, thereabouts. A whole human being: with Daphne’s eyes, or Rafe’s dark hair.   
  
Alas –no. Daphne had wanted no part of it, and all these years later, Rafe still takes it personally.  On paper, it almost seems a shame, almost. But then he catches sight of his face in the glass, and sees just a fraction of Father in his features.   
  
Who is he trying to fool? Daphne, now long-gone? Or Nadine: too smart for him –able to see every little bit of his weakness and insecurity. Or worse still –himself?   
  
He sees Father there, in his face for just a second, and remembers what he is and where he came from. And after the childhood he had, he thinks that it’d be a strange, sweet mercy to bring the bloodline to an end, by choice.   
  
But Nadine isn’t known to him for her mercy.   
  
After an hour under the stream of water, Rafe finally gets out, and shaves, for good measure. He goes back into his bedroom to start getting changed for dinner, and checks his phone as he opens the closet door.   
  
A message from Nadine three hours ago. ‘change of plan. Dinner at six instead. Reservations amended.’.   
  
But it’s already three minutes past six.   
  
-  
  
Rafe gets to _Per Se_ a record 40 minutes late.   
  
He’s hurrying up the steps just as Nadine is hurrying down them, and it’s only as they’re about to collide that he recognises her.   
  
“Nadine!” He says, in a pinched voice, reaching out with his free hand to take the inside of her arm. “Let’s head inside.”   
  
For some unfathomable reason, Nadine shakes him off and goes to continue walking.   
  
He hurries down the steps to match her pace and takes her again. “I know I’m late, but it’s freezing out here.” He doesn’t think to apologise, but instead goes to grab her again. “Come on.”   
  
Nadine looks up at him, not fighting his touch, and shakes her head, looking worrisomely serious. “I don’t have the time.” She tells him, in a slightly smaller voice than usual. “I have to be at the airport in an hour.”   
  
In his confusion, Rafe tugs her until they’re only a few inches apart, and swallows. “What the hell are you talking about? We’re supposed to--”  
  
“Rafe.” She cuts him off. “I have to go.”  
  
The information is right there for him, and it’s like Rafe’s brain just outright rejects it. They’re supposed to have dinner. They’re supposed to have wine and flirt and he’s supposed to surprise her with her gift and then she’s supposed to come back to his and then –and then--…  
  
Like a child, he shakes his head in numbness and just says, “We’re supposed to have dinner.”   
  
Sighing, Nadine looks way for a second as conflict draws across her features. “We can reschedule, but right now I really have to go.”   
  
That feeling in his chest –the avalanche? It’s so cold and hard that Rafe thinks it could turn his nasty little coal-heart into diamonds with the pressure of it. This isn’t what he wants. She’s not supposed to get her flight tonight, and she’s no supposed to leave New York and she’s not supposed to stay pregnant.  
  
It’s wrong. It’s all wrong, and something in Rafe’s composure snaps like a cheap rubber band.   
  
Nadine is just about free when he takes her shoulders and spins her around.   
  
“Rafe, I’m not going--”  
  
He shakes her, furiously. “Anywhere!” He hisses, dropping his voice low. “You’re not going anywhere, goddamnit.”   
  
Not nearly as proud, or easily provoked, Nadine tenses up, and warns him. “Rafe, let go of me.”   
  
“Not until –not until you tell me what’s going on!” He looks around, desperately, at a loss, before pleading with her. His arms are still on her arms, holding her in place, and there’s nowhere for Nadine to run, in that moment.   
  
Not that she tries. Calmly –amazingly, given how unsettling Rafe is, she simply says, “I rescheduled my flight. I have to go--”  
  
“No.” Rafe says, sneering, shaking his head. His grip only gets tighter. “You’re –you’re staying here.”   
  
She struggles, slightly, looking anywhere buy him, raising her voice. “Rafe--”  
  
In his delirium, he doesn’t even think to stop himself when he shakes her, angrily. “I said you’re staying!” Nadine has a limit, and Rafe isn’t aware he’s even close to it before Nadine tries to tear out of his grasp. Desperate to keep her, he grabs her harder. “Nadine, I love you!”  
  
God, it was never supposed to come out like that. It was never supposed to come out at all, and if it ever did, it would be years from now in some place that was theirs, with Nadine in his arms, and he’d say it gently, whispering it to her before she’d whisper it back.   
  
No, instead, he’s barking at her like a madman on the steps of a restaurant as passer-bys stare.   
  
Nadine doesn’t say anything, at first. If anything, there’s a faint look of horror on her face, and she looks at him in bewilderment. “Let go of me.” She says, levelly, warning him once more.   
  
Chest heaving, Rafe coughs out, “No.”  He shakes her again, breathing hard as he looks at her, serious, at the end of his tether. “I love you! You belong to me!”   
  
She looks at him again, reviled. Then she kicks out, and breaks free of his grip.    
  
“You’re _insane_.” She tells him, furiously, red rising in her face. “Stay away from me.”   
  
Nadine starts to walk away, towards the road, and panic rises in Rafe, pushing him to pursue her again. His face is red and bitter with the cold, his heart still beating furiously, the avalanche forcing his chest down so hard he thinks he’ll burst. God, he’s said too much, but he can’t just –just let her leave him.   
  
“Nadine, for god’s sake!” He hurries down after her, watching her hail a cab in despair. God, there’s something lodged in his throat and his voice sounds awful and wet and weak when he calls out again, his nose prickling. “Nadine, l _-listen_ \--”  
  
“No –you listen!” She turns on him again. “You –you’re sick.” Every word is like a bullet in his back that’s terrified of blood. Calmer, suddenly, she tells him with an impenetrable authority. “I’m leaving.”   
  
A yellow cab pulls up at the curb besides her, and she tears open the door, climbing inside. Rafe watches, helplessly. “Nadine--”  
  
She looks at him only once more, the cab door still open --his last window of hope. “Merry Christmas, Rafe.” She spits, angrily. “You can keep this.” Reaching into her coat pocket, she throws an envelope towards him. It falls half a metre short and ends up lying on the slushy sidewalk, sorry for itself.   
  
Pointing in accusation, he starts towards her, slowly. His voice is wrecked but his pride is nowhere, so he says, “Nadine – _wait_ \--”  
  
She looks at him in pity. One last look. “So long, Rafe.”   
  
And then the door shuts. He advances on the cab furiously, watching as it pulls away, calling after her furiously. “Nadine!”   
  
But he’s too late. The cab pulls away and gets lost in the traffic further up the road, and Rafe can do nothing but watch her go, stifled by the avalanche. God, his chest hurts so much that he wishes he could cut himself open and bleed out some of the mounting pressure.   
  
She’s gone. She’s gone and there he is: standing out on the sidewalk, entirely alone, strangers behind him staring in fright and confusion. And he stays there, frozen in anguish for what feels like some eternity, watching the cars pass, freezing and torn open, biting the inside of his cheek hard to keep his composure.   
  
Darkness has already fallen on the city. There’s not a bit of real light left in the sky, and Rafe is still biting down on the inside of his cheek, forcing himself to stay composed. Forcing himself to stay together.   
  
Eventually, when he’s ready to move, he turns back around, ready to go home, when he sees the envelope, now soggy, still there in the melting snow.   
  
He fishes it from the ground, tentatively, and tears it open in anguish. He hopes to god it will shed some light on –on what the hell just happened. He loves her. He said that he loved her and she just left him here. God, she just fucking left him here.   
  
Ruined with misery, he opens the top of the envelope slowly, and pulls out the paper inside.   
  
He thought it would be a christmas card, or maybe even a handwritten letter or something equally trite. But instead, it’s far worse.   
  
He pulls the paper out only an inch. It’s black, with a date and time printed in white in the top right corner. Confused, he continues to pull it out, seeing more and more darkness, and then scratchy, white lines that make bizarre shapes. Rafe turns his head and looks at it, lost for only a second.   
  
It’s a sonogram.   
  
And that’s his child.   
  



	6. red planet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> violence warnings. mentions of drug abuse, sort of. and death. 
> 
> try not to be put off by all of that. basically, Rafe isn't having a good day/week/year. 
> 
> also your support makes me get out of bed. or stay in bed and writ. grazie!

He takes too much Xanax and goes home alone.   
  
In his living room, he does pills off of the table and chases it with the last of his good bourbon to taper his energy levels. It’s a monumentally bad idea, the drugs at terrible odds with another, and he spends the evening swung out in a bad way.   
  
The sonogram is on his table face-up, and the Xanax gets into the space between his ears and tells him ‘ _everything’s fine. Nadine is going to hurry back and she’s going to love you –who couldn’t love you? She’s going to come back and love you forever and ever. She’s going to get rid of that baby and you’ll be together again, just like before’_.   
  
And then, when the bourbon hits, he thinks ‘ _jesus, she’s gone for good. She’s gone and she’s not coming back. You had your chance with her and just –just fucking pissed it away!_ ’.    
  
He sits, limp, on the floor between the couch and the table and puts a heavy hand on the picture, blearily. How could she do this to him? How could she leave –and not just leave, but give him that god-awful picture?   
  
He can’t pretend anymore. He looks at it and the avalanche could damn-near kill him. It’s not some –some abstract concept any longer. It’s not just Nadine saying it. And it’s not the slight bump of her stomach, and how tired she constantly seems to be. It’s real.   
  
And Rafe never wanted it to be real. He never wanted this inconvenience to have weight to it: to have tiny, formed arms and legs, reaching up as if for something. He never wanted it to look like a person –a fucking person, for the love of god.   
  
Out of his mind, he calls her a ridiculous amount of times, prostrate on the floor beneath the table, muttering feverishly into the handset, ‘ _I’m sorry, I’m sorry –I didn’t mean what I said, for fuck’s sake, just pick up the phone: please! Just pick up the fucking phone, please. I love you –I’m sorry’_.   
  
Thankfully, the calls go unanswered until he passes out under the table, drunk as hell, eventually weak enough for his resolve to disappear, and then he’s crying. He’s crying into the carpet like a fucking idiot, feeling sick to his stomach, with the pills like sunlight in his skull, but the bourbon drowning his brain until he loses consciousness.   
  
-  
  
Ten hours later, he wakes in his own vomit, his eyes bloodshot and crusty.   
  
His insides hurt. He sort of wishes he were dead.   
  
With trembling, weak arms, he pushes himself onto all fours, and before he can do anything else, he wretches again and vomits some more. The sensation is overpowering and it forces his eyes to prickle and his throat to turn, turning the carpet before him into a wobbling picture of grief.   
  
One of his hands comes up uncertainly to rest on the coffee table as he pulls himself unsteadily to standing. Every part of him aches in a nasty way, and as he looks down to make sure his feet work, he sees that damn picture still on the table.   
  
Oh, Nadine.   
  
He picks his phone off of the table besides it and goes to turn it on, groggily. It’s dead. Truly, the cherry on top of another glorious fucking morning alone.   
  
Rafe staggers down the hall to charge it in the kitchen, and then makes it into the master bathroom. He vomits again, making it into the sink, of all places, before crawling into the shower and sitting there, uselessly. He honestly doesn’t think he could manage his clothes –the ones from last night, formal, pressed clothes. They can be replaced.   
  
He leans up and runs the shower as hot as it will go, limp against the tile floor, trying his hardest not to think of the last time she was here. Trying not to think of her at all, on the other side of the world by now, wanting that distance between them.   
  
He misses her. God, it’s not even been a day, and already, he wants her back.   
  
-  
  
He calls his assistant day and night about it.   
  
Rafe says he wants pictures. He wants an address. He wants her to call, and he wants her back –and  Rafe always gets what he wants. Around the clock updates of what she’s doing, who she’s with –who she’s fucking and any transactions or business activity.   
  
Damn the expense –he intends to keep Nadine, and Shoreline with her, under a goddamn microscope for the foreseeable future.   
  
It never occurs to him to let the matter rest. Rafe never could keep his fingers off of a scab, even if it will only leave a scar. He never learned –as if he grew up on the red planet, only learning about earth from a distance. Delusional. Alone.   
  
Alone _again_.  
  
-  
  
T.S Elliot said that April was the cruellest month.   
  
Rafe finds it to be December.   
  
New York is lit up the entire month in for the holidays, and Rafe learns, for the first time, that festivity is just a persistent reminder of how empty his life is. How lonely it is.   
  
A week and a half crawls by at an agonising pace. Rafe makes his way to the back of the liquor cabinet in that time. He doesn’t eat. The pills keep him from jumping off the rooftop --thereabouts.   
  
The whole month grows to feel like his time at college, just with a different pill to swallow. Adderall and the like had been easy to get, and it made term papers and lectures and all the dullest parts of life fly by. But, then, all of life felt pretty dull, and the pressure started piling on and Rafe realised he was a mediocre student at best. The only thing keeping him in class was Father, and the pills, and he knew which he liked better.   
  
At the end of the year he was close to psychosis, whittled down to barely 60kg, twitchy and miserable. Rafe has been delirious and pneumonic and thought ’I’ve made it. Sweet Jesus, I might not be Valedictorian but I graduated!’.  
  
That summer Father sent him, under watch, to Nevada to recover. Because rehabilitation was a much nastier word.   
  
Here he is nearly twenty years later –having learned nothing. Having grown none. Just the same –only older, greyer. At a greater loss.   
  
He thinks on his sins: his last words to Nadine. His oppressive brand of love that he remembers from his patriarch.   
  
In his best behaviour, he really is just like him. And one only needs to peel back but a millimetre of veneer to find that part of him –the one that Rafe tries so ardently to hide.    
  
Father would be so proud.   
  
-  
  
After two weeks of solitude, the city nearly eats him alive.   
  
So Rafe does the unthinkable. He flies out to El Paso.   
  
Mother’s death is an old wound. The scar tissue is still sore, here and there, but it’s nothing near as fresh and awful as the gaping hole in his side that is Nadine’s absence. Rafe can hardly say he felt loss over Mother: she had been so absent to him.   
  
Mother had left him at eight. Well, truth be told, it’s always been unclear as to which force it really was. Either way, if she were pushed away or left, she was gone. He was left at Father’s mercy, and was so rarely home between academies and classes. The only time of the year he ever saw Mother was at Christmas. Sure, there was the occasional letter, or information passed-on, but that was it.   
  
But Rafe had to construct a narrative to cope. As a child, he’d tell himself that Mother was busy. That she was doing this or that, and any day now she’d come back for him. His faith never wavered, either –for Christmas would come, and that silver-haired woman would tell him how special he was.   
  
There was such a discrepancy between his mythology of her, and his time with her. And his ardent desire to be with her.   
  
At seventeen, he only had a year left at Deerfield. He was going to spend his whole summer in El Paso after he graduated, and Mother was going to teach him how to ride horses like she could.   
  
But in the fall of that penultimate year she got her diagnosis. Rafe remembers sitting in the nurse’s office when the news came in, pulled out of class to be told by a stranger that Mother was dying. The nurse had said ‘sorry for your trouble’, and then he went back to History of Art, numb.   
  
Then, at Christmas, he remembers her limping out to the barn with him, paler, coming up to the proudest horse in the barn. She took Rafe’s hand and ran it up the neck of the beast, and coughing out, peacefully. “You like him?”   
  
Rafe hadn’t known what to say. He hadn’t known since fall –and nodded, instead.   
  
“That’s good, ‘cause he’s yours now.” She came around to the other side of the horse and sighed, wearily. “I’m no good to him. I can’t even ride anymore, so I thought I’d do the kind thing.” So clearly, he remembers Mother looking off to the side, her dull grey hair parting so he could see the tears shining in her eyes. And then she looked at him, point blank. “And when the time comes, I hope you’ll do the kind thing, too.”   
  
Rafe didn’t get to see her before she died. She never sent for him. What a strange thing, to be seventeen, and have all of this love and grief for one so unfamiliar.   
  
Rafe doesn’t have the excuse of youth anymore. He pulls up at the ranch, twenty years older, just the same as he was. He brings his things onto the porch, and then inside.   
  
Mother’s housekeeper outlived her –no shortage of irony there, and the place is well-kept when he surveys the hall. That terrible, ticking grandfather clock that stopped him sleeping every Christmas eve is still in the hall, working. That outlived her, too.   
  
On the walls are plenty of dusty pictures from times gone by. There are even some of Rafe, though there is a gap in the narrative, there. He notes the baby pictures, and the ones or Rafe that he barely recalls: of a pale, fat child playing on the Cape Cod waterfront. Then –nothing.   
  
A single picture of Rafe at sixteen in winter clothes with four other boys, taken the day before the inter-academy ski race. She probably couldn’t tell which one he was –the one a good head shorter than the rest. The one who came dead last after breaking his leg.    
  
The house is haunting but empty, and he’s glad. He sets up in the room he slept in very Christmas as a child –the wallpaper just the same, faded, but the little flowers still in place, the drawers empty save for a pair of pyjamas he wore as a child.   
  
Rafe doesn’t dare desecrate Mother’s room. He peers inside for just a second and sees her vanity, untouched as if she were just out to buy groceries. It’s just as he recalls –pearls hanging over one mirror, her creams standing proud in the order she always kept them. Her riding boots are by the bed, at rest.   
  
He lies in bed that night unable to sleep. The memories of the place are strange and sporadic.   
  
All he can think of is that damned horse, and how, when he was twenty-four it was old and no good to itself and it couldn’t even ride, so he paid to have it shot. It would have broken Mother’s heart to know a stranger did it, but at the time, Rafe had been in London, and he was still too fresh from losing her.   
  
And now he lies awake, banging his head on the bedframe and mourning. He wishes he’d shot that damn horse himself.   
  
-  
  
He spends the rest of December in El Paso.   
  
It’s a very different lifestyle to New York. A few times, it slips his mind to send for food, and the nearest store is a while away, so he goes hungry a few nights. During the day, he practises his riding and does minimal work.   
  
It’s torturous, at times. But whenever he thinks about going back to New York, he thinks about facing that picture on his coffee table –or even the one of Nadine that he hides in the guest closet. So, he stays in El Paso, to spite himself, and to save himself.   
  
One night he finds a very heavy, dusty book that turns out to be a photograph album. He can’t face it sober, so he takes two valium and drinks the only wine he has as he thumbs through it, intrigued. It’s mostly empty, when he opens it, and doesn’t that just describe what he remembers of her. Never willing to make a commitment. Only thinking and photographing herself.   
  
Mother had been old when she’d had him: at least forty-two. There’s a picture of her, slightly-grey, playing croquet on the lawn of the Long Island Estate that had been sold before Rafe was two. In the shot, she’s smiling, bent slightly, and very heavily pregnant –and the picture makes Rafe deeply, deeply, uncomfortable.   
  
At what point did she stop smiling? When did he make some fatal misstep that made it easy to leave him at just eight? He can’t ascribe any guilt to the doughy child sitting in her lap in the next picture, stuffing a fist into it’s mouth, the picture of innocence.   
  
Nadine is long gone too, and maybe he drove her away, but the feeling is still the same. Rafe loves them, and they leave –and that same love?   
  
It takes and it takes and it _takes_.   
  
-  
  
New Years he goes out to the city.    
  
He stays in a hotel and brings a gorgeous latin type up to his room around three in the morning. Rafe bends over the bed and gets fucked like it’s therapy, hard and angry, getting it all out. It’s a fine enough way to ring in the new year and after a few rounds, the other man smokes out naked on the balcony while Rafe checks his texts.   
  
Not a single call from her. Not even a text.   
  
God, even Daphne had texted him at Christmas. He’d thought it was a generic one sent out, but even she had made the effort to leave him a personal message, and an offer for good tickets to see her company’s production of _Prodigal Son_.   
  
No –not a word from Nadine. He doesn’t know what he expected, but still sends another email to his assistant in New York to get him information on her whereabouts and –and wellbeing.   
  
Back at the ranch, he spends a few more days riding when the weather permits. He takes some calls, despite the lousy reception of the place, and arranges a flight back to Manhattan at the start of the next week.   
  
The solitude has been good for him, he thinks. He found most of the things he was looking for.   
  
-  
  
When he lands back in New York, he calls her. Four times, actually.   
  
The first time, unbelievably, she picks up.   
  
Rafe is calling in the back of a car, jetlagged and sort of grumpy. He doesn’t for a second believe she’s going to pick up –but after eight rings, the line clicks, and he hears her voice.   
  
“Hello?”   
  
Lord, her voice. Rafe aches when he hears it. It echoes in the empty spaces he’d forgotten there were inside of him. The place in his chest that she used to occupy. She sounds slightly tired, as if just having woken. Not an unlikely bet. He has no idea what the time is in Johannesburg.   
  
Rafe can’t help himself. In a lovesick near-whisper, he murmurs, “ _Nadine._ ” And then the line cuts.   
  
The other calls are left to ring out, and Rafe knows that hearing her voice was just sheer dumb luck. A mistake on her end, and one that she doesn’t intend to repeat. Hell –that’s probably all she thinks of him as, now. A momentary lapse of judgement and nothing more.   
  
-  
  
That call does him no damned good.   
  
Nadine is on the other side of the damn world and Mother has been in the ground these past twenty years and the horse is as good as dead –so why the hell can’t he sleep? Why is he lying awake in the room he last held her, sleepless?   
  
These things are done. He can’t change them –not with all the money in the world. So what else is there to do but forget?   
  
He gets out of bed feeling sweaty and uneasy, the flagstone a shock of ice underneath his bare feet. In complete darkness, he pads down the hall and into the kitchen, fumbling for the lightswitch. It comes in a sudden flash and he swears, faintly, a headache springing to life the moment the room is illuminated.    
  
He goes to the top cupboard for the last of the good bourbon. It’s the only thing in to drink –save for an old bottle of vermouth, and he doesn’t think he’s that desperate yet. All he’s after is that click –that lovely, mechanical little click that makes his brain feel less damn crowded. He could sleep after that, he thinks. He could get some rest.   
  
It’s his place that’s keeping him restless. Half-crazed, he has been lying there all night with his eyes open as if waiting for Nadine to come back into bed from the bathroom. But she’s not coming –she’s never coming.   
  
What’s worse is the bottle. Less than a lick of bourbon is left in it. The bottle is empty, and his place is empty –and goddamnit, he’s so fucking empty.   
  
“ _Fuck!_ ” Rafe is yelling before he can help it. His eyes are sort of watering –it’s dumb. Miserable and sober, he pitches the bottle like a baseball in his hand until it hits the kitchen wall and shatters. He stands there, his chest heaving, pressure having built up in him until breaking point, and now it’s over, he feels even emptier than before.   
  
God, there’s nothing left.   
  
There’s no chance that he’ll be able to get any rest at this rate. Rafe marches back into the bedroom, ignoring the darkness and caring not a cent for the cold. He dresses quickly and automatically, throwing on a shirt and jeans. He doesn’t bother layering. Despite the cold, he only intends to be very brief.   
  
Rafe is heading to the door through the living room when he has the sudden sensation of being looked at. But when he turns his head, all that’s present is that damned photograph she’d given him, hauntingly salient and face-up on the table.   
  
He takes a step towards it, almost afraid, and turns it over. He turns it over and prays that he’ll never have to look at it again.   
  
In the cloakroom, he takes the first jacket that’s on the hook –the sportscoat he’d warn to the Met exhibition, and reaches the ground floor in silence. He leaves some lights on –he’ll only be a minute. He ignores the doorman and heads straight out into the snow, marching, stiff in the joints.   
  
Twenty seconds into walking and he already feels sick with the windchill. No love lost there for long: cheap whiskey will burn his lips and make him feel warm inside instead of cold and barren and empty. There’s an all-hours convenience store not too far, though it’s not on his block. Nothing so common as a store near him. Just apartments and penthouses and bars.   
  
Rafe doesn’t feel like going to a bar right now –he’d go there and hate everyone in conversation, or smiling. He thinks he’ll hallucinate Nadine at the backs of other women. At the airport, he thought he saw her a thousand times, but then she’d turn, and a stranger would emerge and there was no recognition in their eyes.   
  
Jesus, it’s so cold. Rafe draws his arms around himself and tenses his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. In the distance, there are a few people walking around and the general noise of taxis. Rafe had been used to the noise of the city before his stint in El Paso, but now finds the city more abrasive. Louder, even.   
  
He sees the lights of the store up the street eventually and makes towards it. It’s a nastier part of the city, he notes, aware of the shuffling in alleyways and the bleak call of some man behind him scrounging for pennies.   
  
“Hey, man –you got a dollar?” Rafe knows to keep walking. He doesn’t even look back.   
  
The store itself is shut, but the walk-up window is open. The girl serving looks bored out of her mind, and Rafe is more than happy to occupy her. He’s freezing and sober and pained, so the minute she gives him the bottle, wrapped snugly for the weather in it’s brown paper bottle, he doesn’t even wait for his change.   
  
On the spot, he takes a hard swig and grimaces when it’s over, the burn on his mouth exacerbated by the cold. It hits his stomach and vaguely makes him want to hurl, but it’ll do the trick. Rafe isn’t looking for the smooth, pleasant quality of an Old Fashioned or the like. Right now, he just wants that damned click.   
  
He coughs, vaguely, and starts down the street back towards his apartment complex. His insides shiver. There’s not another soul walking up or down the block, so he feel no guilt in drinking and walking. He’s never known the city to feel this lonely, and it honestly a bit unnerved until he hears that same twitchy voice from before.   
  
“Hey –hey, man.”   
  
Rafe slows, but doesn’t dare stop. He doesn’t turn, either.   
  
“C-can I have a drink, man?”   
  
The guy is now standing, only a few paces behind Rafe. It doesn’t occur to him to be afraid, exactly. He’s been in plenty of fights before. All he can think of is getting home and drinking until he gets his click and can sleep without dreaming.   
  
But it’s never that simple. At his silence, the man behind him starts following him of all things, and says once more. “Hey, m-man. It’s freezin’. Jus’ a drink?” One of his hands reaches out for Rafe, and that just aggravates him.   
  
He hurries away from the touch disgustedly. “Don’t _touch_ me!” he yells, angrily. He starts to walk again, but feels a heavy hand on his shoulder.   
  
Rafe stops; his first mistake. He whirls on th guy behind him, and gets out, “I told you to--”  
  
Like sudden lightning, thr guy lunges forward, and Rafe is convicned he’s about to get hit. It all happens in seconds. His arms come up to his face in defense, and as he’s turning his face, he feels a punch to the stomach, and then--  
  
And then a tearing burn so agonising that he stops breathing.   
  
It isn’t over. Another blow comes in quick succession, and Rafe feels himself go limp, his legs failing as he feels something hot blooming on his skin like sweat. There’s barely time to register the feeling of terrible wetness before the pain sets in.   
  
Rafe’s legs go slack beneath him. One hand is still somehow holding onto the bottle that’s pried from him as he staggers backwards, a hand going down to his abdomen in confusion and coming up soaked with blood. He blinks, coughing out, blood on his lips, and then starts to collapse.   
  
There’s –there’s _blood_.   
  
It isn’t over. Rafe never even sees the knife. As his legs go from beneath him, he falls onto his hands, kneeling.   
  
It comes again –the knife. The force winds him and his hands go from beneath him as he feels it plunge though his coat and into the flesh of his upper back. Hands tear through him for a wallet and leave him bereft.   
  
Rafe hears himself scream –hoarsely, pathetically. He hears footsteps getting further from him.   
  
It is over? Delirious with pain, Rafe doesn’t even try to look. He can’t think of anything but the pain, his brain screaming as the lacerations throb.   
  
His nerve endings burn, and he can feel his pulse as each systole of his heart oozes more blood from his stomach. The snow is red, and his hands –trembling, pressing uselessly against the wounds, are soupy with blood.   
  
He wishes his heart would stop. He wishes his breathing would stop. Anything –god, fucking anything to stop the pain. It comes at him in waves, until his body is taught and Rafe is holding his breath in the snow. The pressure and intensity of it keep building, at first. It’s consuming –a freezing burn that blooms in his insides until Rafe thinks that he’ll honestly die.   
  
That’s the first time he thinks of it.   
  
He’s woozy. His thoughts are erratic, passing pictures, and for some reason Rafe tries to lift his shirt, now stuck to him fully saturated with his blood to access his stomach. He’s so weak, at this point, that he abandons the attempt, falling off of his side and onto his front.   
  
The snow smarts against his wound worse –and Rafe coughs out a sob. His eyes are growing heavy, and he screws them shut for his own sake. Breathing is agony, pure and absolute, but he tries his best to take in very shallow, whimpering breaths.   
  
Something –something is happening. His eyes shut, and then when they open again he can hear murmuring. His stomach burns, pulsing, bleeding still, somehow. Rafe wonders if he has any more blood in his entire body.   
  
He feels himself being turned onto his back again. He sobs out again and breathes harder, shutting his eyes again to preserve his energy, but opening them when he feels himself being reclined, sort of.   
  
Something lays an agonising pressure on his back and it burns. Rafe coughs out and tried to fight as two hands suddenly fix on his. His hands are pulled down to his mess of a stomach, and he can barely find the puncture wounds that are gaping and violently bleeding beneath all the blood.   
  
“Put pressure on it.” He hears a female voice speak. Weakly, his eyes manage to open, and through blurry double-vision he sees how the snow has become so red and saturated that it’s starting to clump. The air reeks of iron. Turning his head, he sees the owner of the voice, and the body he’s being propped up against. The shop girl.   
  
Rafe looks at her. His eyes start to fall closed again, and he feels his body get shaken slightly.   
  
“Don’t close your eyes!” She begs. Her voice is so loud. Everything is so loud. Rafe’s pain is starting to become more blurry and now he feels tired and overwhelmed. “Hey –stay with me.”   
  
He thinks he nods, but his eyes are closing again.   
  
Time must pass. His eyes stay closed, and he feels even scarcer. The rise and fall of his chest is so barely present that he might well be dead. He can’t feel his pulse any more at any point in his body. Absently, Rafe wonders, has my heart stopped? Am I going to die here? He tries, suddenly, to take a deep breath it, but it does him no good and only alerts the attention somebody new.   
  
When he opens his eyes, he is blinded by _red-white-red-white_. The light is so harsh that he cries out feebly and turns his head. Most of his body feels numb at this point, and then begins to feel almost pleasantly warm, and comfortable. They must be medicating him.   
  
A voice comes to him as if underwater. “Open your eyes.” He’s told. Rafe lets out another weak breath and feels himself powering down. “C’mon, open your eyes.” Somebody is pleading with him. Rafe’s body feels like it might be moving, but it’s hard to fell. It feels like he’s evaporating. He looks around helplessly and tries to keep his eyes open.    
  
Above him in the colour of navy blue, and a blurry face that doesn’t seem attached to any shoulders. He wants to say something. He wants to ask for somebody that he knows, because he’s too young to die alone like this.   
  
Falling snow tickles his nose. His head lolls to the side of his own accord, and he looks at the red blood in the white snow and the light of the ambulance going _red-white-red-white-red-white_.   
  
Then black.   
  
-  
  
Shouting. Heart-monitors –moving.   
  
That warm feeling gets warmer still and Rafe thinks he must have died and become his mind because his whole body is weightless. Nothing could bring him back to earth.   
  
Hands touch him. Feverish –should he come or cry at it? The world shifts. White, now.   
  
Is he dreaming?   
  
Rafe thinks he must be looking down at his feet while the rest of the world races by. He notes a narrow passage, milky and warm.   
  
He thinks he sees Mother at the end of it. Standing there in her riding boots as he passes by her, looking with such –such disdain. Rafe turns his head to try to look back at her, but cannot find her, and panics, briefly.   
  
He tries to speak but his throat is blocked and could be closing. He tries to yell out –‘ _don’t tell her about the horse!_ ’, but he can’t.   
  
And he must be dreaming –because he lets it go, and his head drops as another wave of nausea and fatigue overwhelms him. Somewhere, he remembers reading that you’re supposed to feel warm and comfortable before you die of exposure.   
  
Rafe doesn’t want to die –he doesn’t want to be outlived by Father. He doesn’t want to leave Nadine the way he has left her. But how can he fight it? Every cell in his body surrenders, and he embraces the warmth of it; how celestial he feels, finally swimming downstream, every brush of air on his skin like a kiss.   
  
Why worry? Why worry at all about the horse?   
  
Rafe will be able to tell Mother all about it.


	7. alpha shadows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooo shit idk what happened.   
> shoutout to harrysflynns.   
> my love to my wife stanzie.

Light.   
  
Light outside of his eyelids, turning the darkness orange. There are sounds, too, and they start small but grow into a mishmash of noises like the ones outside of his bedroom windows. Soft beeps instead of car horns, and chatter instead of traffic. Occasional footsteps shuffle past gentle like phone lines whistling in the wind.   
  
Rafe must be dreaming. His body is removed from him. There is no sensation of breathing or being –nothing but weightlessness and dangling. Orange bleaches to white, and there are squares upon squares in such order. Some glow, radiant and snowy, but others are dull. Are his eyes open? What is he looking at.   
  
The image fades. Time must be passing, because when he sees the light again –so clean, almost angelic; the room is darker. His eyes must be open. At last, he can feel his eyes focusing and trying to bring detail to the sight. After a while, his eyes drop and try to search. The walls are adorned with switches and signs he cannot read. There’s a window to his left.   
  
Woozy, it takes him time to focus on the window. Outside is deep and navy. White flakes are stuck around the edges of the pane. Amazing, he notices, it’s open. It breathes a slice of air.   
  
There’s a tickle in Rafe’s throat, suddenly, and he realises that he’s still real. Grounded all of a sudden by his physiology, he tries to cough. But it’s silent.   
  
In a sudden panic and relative clarity, he tries to feel for where the rest of his body might be. One of his hands manages to move to his face, sluggishly. He tries to take in a deep breaths but –but can’t, somehow. Oh, God, he’s going to suffocate.   
  
Rafe tries to cry out, but can’t. No noise comes out of his mouth at all.   
  
The soft murmurs of the monitor by him escalates into a frenzy as he feels up his face, terrified, finding a tube under his palm that goes all the way up to where he feels his face must be. It’s in his mouth. It’s in his throat –probably all the way down to his lungs, choking him.   
  
Feebly, Rafe tightens his clumsy hand on the tube and tries to pull on it, but all that does is alert somebody in the process.   
  
He doesn’t even see the nurse that comes over to him until his left hand is taken off of the tube, forcefully. Rafe tries to fight, but is too weak to and feels exhausted by just the brief exertion. There’s nothing left in him when his hands are tied, one up, and one down, to the sides of the bed.   
  
His head falls back onto it’s side, and Rafe lets himself evaporate again.   
  
-  
  
Rafe has three dreams.   
  
He dreams about straw dogs and horseback riding back-to-back. The dogs are on the Cape Cod beach he played on as a child, and in the next dream, the horses won’t ride.   
  
In the last dream, he is in his prep school nurses’ office, and Nadine is turned away, reading the snellen chart on the wall. He calls out to her, but she doesn’t turn to face him, and Rafe is so desperate to see her and to touch her that he tries to grab her. When Nadine finally turns, he sees that she’s eating an apple.   
  
She offers it to him, silently, and Rafe is just about to take about a bite when he wakes up.   
  
His eyes don’t think to open right away. It’s the heart monitor that wakes him, beeping ominously like a countdown. Rafe shies away from the noise, grumbling.   
  
Aloud. He grumbles aloud.   
  
Rafe opens his eyes and takes a breath. He takes it in and feels the benefit of it, and Jesus, he has learned to love the air better now. He breathes in and feels it as fresh and singular as the morning fog. One of his hands goes to move –but is tethered.   
  
Not by a restraint, but by another hand.   
  
Rafe tries to turn his head to try to find her. His eyes wind in his skull and his heart rate increases ever-so-slightly in the second he searches. Even his pulse seems to sound like her name: Na-dine, Na-dine, Na-dine--  
  
Daphne?   
  
Rafe must make a noise of confusion, and that seems to alert her. She turns her head, and the hand on his tightens –almost painfully.   
  
He must be dreaming. It has to be the morphine, or the blood loss. Daphne wouldn’t come here to see him –not after the last five years of separation. She wouldn’t come and she wouldn’t look just like he remembers her: sharp-featured, pale and startlingly thin. Drowsily, he frowns at her silently until she speaks.   
  
“Rafael?” Her voice is the same, too. Cold. Serious. “Are you with me?”   
  
Rafe stares. He blinks a couple of times, expecting her to disappear like Mother did. Another apparition haunting him as he lays dying.   
  
But the sight of Daphne doesn’t disappear. She blurs before him as he slides peacefully in and out of consciousness, never quite lucid, but aware. It’s impossible to tell about the passage of time –it slips through any grasp he tries to have like water, warm and peaceful but frustrating. He thinks he wants to open his eyes and be awake.   
  
But Rafe is helpless to it. He’s spun out and nauseous and he drifts in and out many more times before he feels himself come around again.   
  
He doesn’t know if he can speak. When he tries, a rusty sort of breath comes out.  
  
Daphne seems to interpret. She squeezes his hand, again –reminding Rafe that they’re still touching. Five-years of near-radio silence on his end, and this is how they reunite. “You know,” She says, gently. “If you wanted to get out of seeing my performance, you didn’t have to go to such effort.”   
  
Rafe coughs again, and feels a distant, far-off stab of pain down his front. Thank god for morphine. He twists in the bed and looks at the hand holding his. Daphne’s hand, and all the subtext that little touch implies. Eventually, his tired eyes wind up to meet hers, and she smiles at him. Smiles, of all things; it confuses him.   
  
“You all there?” She leans in, and Rafe blinks slowly again, trying to take in the sight and tactility of her to make sure this is real. How can it be? Years have passed. He left her in such a sudden way. She wouldn’t come for him, and she wouldn’t come looking like she hasn’t felt a day of their time spent apart.   
  
Hazily, he manages to murmur, “Bathroom.” He tries to sit himself up.   
  
She shakes her head and seamlessly says, “Catheter.” Reaching over, she puts a hand on his shoulder and pushes him back into the bed as softly as she can. “Don’t move. Relax.” Even after all this time, she still has this trembling, wiry strength to her voice. It’s sort of comforting to hear it.   
  
Rafe doesn’t fight it. He rests back against the bed and swallows, droopily. “I feel sick.” With one hand, he gestures, and then brings it to his face in fascination, noting the cannula on the back of his hand.   
  
Daphne watches him, and looks on in sternly with a weight to her gaze. “Careful. They said you tried to rip out your intubation tube this morning.” Childishly, Rafe plays with the tube on his hand and lies still, content to breathe. He looks at Daphne and smiles, faintly.   
  
“Hi.” He murmurs, sleepily, looking at her fondly before the expression moves to discomfort. “I –don’t feel so good.”   
  
Staidly, she nods and removes her hand from his. Her face is so sharp when she’s not smiling, and Rafe thinks he’ll cut his hands on her edges. Is that new about her? Was it always like that?   
  
She gives him two answers when she reaches out to touch his face, turning it towards her. Her hands are soft, but strikingly cold. “They’re overmedicating you. You’re practically green.” Her touch is removed, and he watches her nod. “I’ll let the nurse know.”   
  
Rafe rubs his face and yawns, again. He feels like a vapour. “Okay,” He murmurs, contentedly. Just as he seems to be settling, another thought comes to him, and he waves his tethered hand absently. “Ask ‘em for Nadine too.”   
  
Ever the unmoveable object, Daphne doesn’t blink. Her long, elegant neck is what he fixates on last before he closes his eyes again, missing the confusion that grips her for a second. “I didn’t hear that last part.”   
  
He frowns, and tries to turn in the bed. He doesn’t get very far. Frustrated, but mostly overwhelmed, he grumbles. “Just--” He rubs his eyes, “—just ask ‘em for her. I—I need to see her.” At Daphne’s silence, he frowns deeper, and manages to open his eyes to look at her. “Would you ask, Daph?”   
  
The name is what gets her. Still clearly confused and a little hurt, she nods, eventually, though Rafe’s eyes are already closed the resistance is disappearing from his form.   
  
She reaches out, tentatively, and gives his hand another cold, sombre touch. “Of course.” She says, without any obligation or ceremony in her iron voice.   
  
It’s unclear if Rafe has heard until he lifts his thumb and touches her in the smallest, gentlest touch. “Thanks, Daph.” He says, lifelessly, looking already asleep even if he isn’t.   
  
The only indication of his consciousness is the slight and permissible movement of his thumb against her hand. It’s so intimate, growing weaker and weaker until eventually his breathing is deep and level and all movement in him has ceased. He lies there, looking sickly and weak, but amazingly alive.   
  
Daphne only looks for a few seconds. She doesn’t move her hand –unable to let go, unaware that she should. Rafe is the first to move, twitching in his rest, his hand moving to scratch his chest.   
  
Eventually a nurse comes by to check his vitals, and before she leaves, she remembers to mention the morphine dosage.   
  
She forgets the other thing.   
  
-  
  
Rafe wakes in the evening.   
  
His body is heavier to him, now. Known, but still removed. One of his hands manages to move, and he finds himself relatively connected. They sure did stick him back together with glue –Rafe isn’t in pain, but feels strangely fragile. Like a vapour in the gown, afraid he’ll have no choice but to be sucked from his comfort by the breeze from the open window.   
  
Lucid, but still drowsy, he rubs his eyes and lets out a deep breath, relaxing against the sheets. There is no feeling to any of him. The terrible trauma in the snow seems so far-off now: years ago, as if having happened to another man. Maybe Nadine will hear. Maybe she’ll come.   
  
A nurse comes in, then, and he thinks he remembers somebody coming to him. She pulls the overbed table to him and sets down a tray of food on it, and then as she’s coming around to read his chart, he murmurs, “H-has anybody been here?”   
  
She looks at him, inertly.   
  
“For me?” He clarifies, his voice rusty, but with an airless quality to it as well.   
  
The nurse drops her head slightly and nods. “A Miss Sturve. She’s your emergency contact.”   
  
Rafe lifts his head slightly off of the pillow and then drops it. Even that small motion seems to tire him. His mind reels for a memory of her visit, but can fathom nought but the feeling of her hand on his. So –so she came. Not Nadine –not anybody else, but Daphne, and only because she was called. Only because he never thought to change his paperwork.   
  
The nurse makes to go and Rafe thinks that he hates her for his own loneliness. He hates her for the senseless act of violence he suffered from a city he always thought of as home. He hates--  
  
“Oh.” The nurse stops short of the door and turns, pausing. “There was somebody else.”  
  
It’s an opportunity. God, even as dizzy as he feels, his heart still rises in his beaten, lacerated body at just the notion of her. He hates Nadine even more than that nurse for what she’s done and what she thinks she’s going to do –but he loves her, too.   
  
Agonized, Rafe coughs out, “Yes?”   
  
The nurse nods as if in sudden recollection. “Yes –a Miss Keating. She dropped off a few things for you.”   
  
Miss Keating –his assistant in New York. No more, no less.   
  
For a second, the hope seems to counteract the morphine and Rafe feels a slight burn to his whole body that he recognises as shame. The avalanche can’t be medicated against, and each time he feels the snowslide in his chest it gets heavier. There is no mercy or fondness in absence. Just –just anger, and confusion.   
  
The nurse leaves him, then, and Rafe thinks that it’s no small mercy on her part.   
  
He orients himself in the room. His assistant has brought one of his laptops, and on top of the closed lid is his cell phone and a card, standing upright with a picture of a bandaid on the front. It says ‘get well soon’ on the inside, with his assitant’s signature, and nothing else.   
  
Trying not to be eager, he takes the phone with one hand and thumbs through his notifications absently. Two dozen sympathetic messages from acquiantances he barely knows. Links to Huffington post articles and other news sources that he’s mentioned on. Nothing from her. Not a damn thing.   
  
His other hand feels through his hospital gown, over thick, stiff patches of waterproof dressings. There are two on his stomach, and he just about remembers the one on his back. At her silence –the nothingness between them, his hand twitches absently, as if tempted to tear off the bandages and every stitch. Just to spite her. Just to –oh, he doesn’t know. Bring her back, probably.   
  
Rafe settles for trying his guts into knots from where he lays. Even that isn’t enough. Maybe it’s the meds that do it, but as he takes stock of his private room he finds it full of shadows. A darkness from where Mother might be standing, in the corner, tending to Captain like it’s Christmas morning. Blackness in the seat nearest him that dances away into his periphery when he tries to stare it in the face: which can only be Daphne.   
  
Nadine is the alpha shadow. She is the darkness that covers the city and stands over his bed like Father used to. Even to this day, she makes his love afraid.   
  
(And even to this day, Rafe is terrified of men standing over his bed.)  
  
The next opportunity he gets, he tells the nurse he is in terrible, terrible pain, and needs something stronger for it.   
  
“Of course.” She says, solemnly. “We can increase your dosage.”   
  
The morphine levels in his system rise until he feels like he’s floating, up and up, further than the ceiling and any skyscraper in the city and high into the stratosphere. Until he’s floating into alpha shadows that are both darkness and sleep.   
  
Rafe rests.   
  
-  
  
As fire to the sun, light wakes him. The sound of a door.   
  
He sees Daphne in the door and thinks he might be sick for a second. The sight of her swirls, no longer a shadow, but bright and pale. Rafe tries to focus his blurry eyes onto her form as he pirouettes towards him, spinning out as if into an arabesque before she pliés into sitting.   
  
As if speaking from the next room, her voice is muted and almost hollow when she speaks, “You’re awake.” Never a question. Never –never nice. That’s part of what he’d liked about her, but Rafe can hardly remember. He feels like his body is many states over, years younger. Not his own. “You still look green.”   
  
Rafe’s head lolls to the side pitifully, and he stares at her, marvelled. He thinks he should say something like an apology, after the way they left things. No –the way he left things. He tries to search for the remorse that should be there but finds only airiness, and all he can think to say is, “Need some water.”   
  
Her face falls slightly at that. She folds her cold hands in her lap and looks at him. The first time he’d seen her was on the stage, and he’d noted the strength of her posture and the disdainful, cold look she held. Now he finds it less alluring. “Did you ask for more morphine?” Rafe looks away from her, then. But nods. That should earn her scorn. “That’s typical.” She says, and he has a hard time telling if that’s scorn or sympathy. His head is in clouds –what does he care either way? “I’ll let the nurse know not to be so wasteful.”   
  
Rafe is hardly listening. “But m’thirsty.” His mouth opens and closes a few times to find it dry and salty. His hand goes down to his chest and scratches, and then to his stomach. His whole body is vaguely itchy.   
  
Through the hospital gown and under the dressings, he can feel intricate little bumps that must be stitching, and just as he does, he feels Daphne reach across his body and grab his wrist. “Don’t –don’t scratch that.” She chastises him. “You’ll open it up. Just sit still.”   
  
Rafe tugs his hand away from hers petulantly and sneers. “Said I was thirsty, Daph.”   
  
That makes her laugh. “Daph?” She echoes him. “I haven’t heard that in a long time.” Her hand holds his to squeeze fondly and it brings back memories that he’s not lucid enough to properly recall. Daphne was never the warmest of people, and so it was always so intimate and rewarding to see it. God, they had even been playful together.   
  
Now? He chews his lip tiredly and looks at her. And instead of looking nostalgic, she looks cold again. “Five years, is it, Rafael?”   
  
The word is like a lightning bolt to the stomach, and the surprise of it gives him a sudden dose of clarity. Only slightly. He hadn’t even meant to call her by that name: a habit of a bygone era, meant well. She’s using that name like a weapon, and he hasn’t heard it since they used to fight, or even before that, when the shadow of the standover man used to fall over his bed.   
  
“Don’t.” Trying to muster some warning, he speaks, and drops his head back against his pillow. The morphine is making him feel sick, but it’s lost in the continually overwhelming wave of softness that the medication is granting him. Rafe wishes he could stay on it forever.   
  
Can’t they forget? Can’t they forget and sweetly pretend? Delirious and stupid to be hopeful, he murmurs, “T-the water, Daph . I need--”  
  
She squeezes his hand again hard. Almost cruelly. “You can wait.” Is her answer, level and practised. She always did like to make him crawl through landmines. It reminds him why he was fine to leave her like an appendage suddenly amputated, graceless and sudden.   
  
Angry once more, feeling it rise in him slightly, he grumbles, “It’s just a damn glass of water.” As he sits himself up slightly. But she’s not hearing it. Withdrawing her harsh grip, Daphne crosses her arms.   
  
“Didn’t you hear me?” She asks him: and Rafe is too drugged to try to infer her tone.   
  
“Didn’t you hear _me_?” Rafe glares at her, inert against the pillows. He turns his head and looks at her, exasperatedly. After –after everything he’s been through recently, he is owed so much more than this. But just the drink would do, so he mutters to her. “I said I wanted a--”  
  
“And you just do what you _want_ , don’t you?”   
  
Oh. There it is. He knew he couldn’t avoid the fallout forever.   
  
The peace of the morphine can’t afford Rafe a shield from all that unfolded between them. And it’s not as if Daphne could forget –she’s just like Rafe: never could keep her fingers off a scab. Never could let it go, even at a time like this. She’s probably only here because he’s captive, and they can finally dress a headstone of the trainwreck that was their last week together.   
  
He brings up a weak and unsteady hand to rub his eyes, tired of her already. “You need to leave.” He murmurs, somehow mustering patience.  
  
Daphne probably anticipated as much in his response. She doesn’t flinch, but an eyebrow raises as she draws back, sizing him up. “Why?” The question is fired straight. Rafe doesn’t even think to respond before Daphne fills in for him. “I already met her. Your –your girlfriend, is she?”   
  
Girlfriend? Rafe feels pain rise in him again, and he wishes that Daphne would calm down and tell him what the hell she wants. God, he’d give it to her and try not to bleed out with the way she’s stabbing, blindly going for a main artery. The gentle beeping of his heart monitor is rising in warning for her not to plead.   
  
“You’re full of shit.” He coughs, wounded. “Get out.”   
  
The distress rising him in is obvious and Daphne could laugh it off, but she won’t go until she’s said her damn piece. “Nadine, right?”   
  
Rafe’s heart monitor is going through the roof, now, crescendo-ing terribly. Yet, he’s still trying to save face, somehow. It’s the only bit of pride he can cling to. In a small, sustained voice, he warns her, “Cut the bullshit, Daph.” His chest is heaving. He coughs again, and feels a far-off slither of pain in his back. “I said go home--”  
  
He hears her laugh, mirthlessly. “She’s pretty, _Rafael_. Does she like to b--”  
  
“Daphne--!”Rafe lifts himself off of the bed, agitated, the beeping aggressive and panicked. God, he wants mercy: sweet, strange mercy, but Daphne just keeps talking.   
  
“She was here when I came to see you.” One of her hands forces him back down onto the bed, with a startlingly wiry strength. She stares right into his eyes and seems to take pleasure in the hurt she finds there. “What’s wrong? She didn’t come say hi?”   
  
Rafe’s hand flinches to try to hit her, but she catches his wrist before he can. She remembers that little trick, no doubt.   
  
They’re inches apart with her leaning above him, and she’s breathing in the same knife-like motions, her nails tearing into his palm. Her other hand moves down to his stomach and she pushes down hard with her elbow on where the bandages are.   
  
There’s not enough morphine in the world for that, and Rafe cries out, hissing in agony. The feeling of the knife comes back to him.   
  
“Were you gonna play house, Rafe? Is that it?” Her teeth are bared slightly, and she takes in every detail of his expression before she speaks, waiting for each hit to land. The force of her elbow makes him think he’s going to die. “Were you going to help pick out – _baby names_?”  
  
With his other hand, Rafe slaps her as hard she he can. Open-palm, clean across the flat of her cheeks with enough force that as she pulls away in shock, he can see pink blooming in his wake. His other hand, now free, comes down to hold his stomach as he winces.   
  
For a few seconds, they’re both at a small distance, heaving out breaths, unable to look at eachother. The pain in Rafe's body dissipates slowly, but not the thumping of his heart or the avalanche. Daphne straightens herself and takes a few paces away, suddenly needing a reprieve from him. As if she didn’t come here of her own accord just for this.   
  
Five years, and nothing between them has changed. They’re still too alike. Always were.   
  
Rafe’s hand remains against his stomach, but he finds the strength to look at her, reviled. He tries to slow his breathing. To compose himself. God, he could use that glass of water now.   
  
Miserable, his gaze winds to her again, and he rasps out, “What do you _want_ from me, Daph?”  
  
She whirls on him, and amazingly, there are tears in her eyes. “Don’t you call me that!” She hisses, and then puts a hand on her chest as if to soothe herself. As if she’s upset by all of this. How could Rafe forget how fucking self-involved she was? How nasty?   
  
It takes her a few minutes to achieve composure. When she does, she exhales heavily and looks at him. “I--…” Rafe looks at her, and notes the struggle. As if the words are hard to say. “I want an apology.”  
  
Rafe covers his eyes with his free hand. He knows he should be sorry for –for so many fucking things. For leaving her like he did: a week after her appointment without so much as a word. His assistant had moved out her things while he went to Cape Town to escape her. Maybe he wanted to punish her for the way she handled it –as if disgusted by the notion of carrying his child. Or, maybe he had realised that he had no future with her, then.   
  
He should have –been there for her or something, he knows. At the time, she’d acted like it was a breezy, easy decision. Like there was no sense in the strange hurt and disappointment that Rafe had felt privately. But when was Daphne one to admit hurt? When would she have swallowed her pride enough to confide in him, or he in her?   
  
He’s sorry he ever met her, sometimes. Sorry about so many things: about how he left her, and how he’d treated her. Sorry about his temper and his pride.   
  
But she should be every bit as sorry, too.   
  
Rafe coughs, quietly, and still looks to like everything about her that hurts. “I’m pretty sure we’re both sorry.” His stomach undulates in waves of distant pain. He still feels sick from the morphine, if not sicker now. He’s in no state to do this.   
  
That’s not good enough for her. She shakes her head, and says, “Don’t say it unless you mean it, then.”   
  
Is that supposed to make things harder for him? To expose him as the cruel one, or the liar? Rafe wishes she’s tell him something he doesn’t know, but finds little resistance in forcing himself to say it. “I am sorry.” He swallows, and then looks at her again. “I am.”   
  
In a very slight expression, he sees Daphne’s lip quiver, and it almost looks like she could smile. Her head cocks to the side, very slightly, and she comes close to him again. “You should be.” She says, and comes to sit by him one more time. “You –you never said anything about it, and then I got that phonecall about you being in critical, and then I saw her, and--…” She takes a breath, but needs not say anything else.   
  
Rafe feels over his stomach tentatively and murmurs, “You should call a nurse.”   
  
It she ever so easily fooled? Daphne looks at him with hard eyes. “Okay.” She says, calmly. As she leans over to press the call button on the side of the bed for him, and sighs. “I know it’s not my business, but--…” She trails off, checking his face to see if it’s safe to proceed. “Well, congratulations, I guess.”   
  
Weaker, he thinks to protest and correct her, but stops short. He wants to pretend, for a minute, that Nadine belongs to him, willingly, and that he is choosing this with her and that they’re happy together. If Nadine’s never going to be in his atmosphere again, what’s the harm in it?   
  
“Don’t say it unless you mean it.” Rafe hums, tiredly. He blinks slowly and watches Daphne rise to brush down her thighs. A gesture of parting. A little confused, Rafe looks up at her. “Daph?”   
  
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and nods. “I have a rehearsal to go to.” Ever the professional, she composes herself better this time, and gives him one last touch with her soft, freezing hands. “You should get some rest.”   
  
There is no respect of a kiss goodbye. She walks, because all that time ago Rafe had done the same thing. He watches her, from the bed, feeble and overwrought as her narrow, elegant form passes off of his horizon, for what is likely the last time. Gently, he calls out to her. “Until my next stabbing.” He jests. At least it gets her to turn.   
  
“Please change your emergency contact.” She says, earnestly. It’s with a pained, small smile that she says it, looking at him, and then she’s gone.   
  
She’s gone, and a nurse comes in to attend to him. They check his stitches and bring him water –that damned glass that he’d been asking about for hours.   
  
But Rafe feels no benefit for drinking it.


	8. drawn to the blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hate this chapter. it's The Worst.   
> but u guys are the best SO. 
> 
> ppssssstttt talk to me about ur headcanons bois. esp. ur rafe dadler ones. do not sleep on it.   
> (@ jfk-d.tumblr.com)

(So Nadine came.   
  
She was in the city anyway to finalise business. It’s not like she flew out all that way just to be at his bedside, for god’s sake; it’s not like that. No, she happened to be close when the news came in. Not a polite and merciful call or message, but on the morning news in a hotel room as she came out of the shower. His picture flashed over the headlines for a second, so fast that she could have blinked and missed it.   
  
But she didn’t.   
  
Nadine doesn’t love him –but that’s far from her wanting him dead. In the moments she saw the news report before they moved on, she had been gripped by a sudden coldness and had been almost sorry to leave like she did. But even before the moment passed, she knew to stand by it. Rafe was always a lot of things: maladjusted, childish and walking some kind of line between unstable and a personality disorder. He had a lot of things coming –but not death, or even a brush with it.   
  
She sat on the edge of the hotel bed, drying her body, deciding on what to do. It would be a mistake to go right to him, for every time she’s the least bit considerate towards him he seems to think ‘it’s love!’ when really, it’s more like a misguided sense of duty. Nadine was never in the habit of leaving men behind, but isn’t sure Rafe has ever understood the concept of partners, or friends.   
  
It was morning, then. Early, and wintry enough to be dark outside. She had looked out of the window to hope the snow would dissuade her. She changed the channels to look for an excuse to get out of it, but only saw his face once more on another news network and felt a flutter in her gut that felt like nerves but could also be tentative kicks.   
  
There was no use in avoiding it, she knew. So she came.   
  
The hospital had been across town. His room had been difficult to find at first, and she thought about turning back plenty of times, but by the time she was even close to bolting, her hand was on the outside of his door, and it was like she could feel him breathing through it. She had pulled away, initially, afraid of what she’d find.   
  
The door opened to startle her, and a woman slipped out into the corridor, thin as a rail, with a hard look to her. They were suddenly face-to-face, and Nadine had stepped back, embarrassed.   
  
“Oh.” The woman had said, instead of ‘sorry’. “Are you here to see Rafe?” Nadine had nodded, trying to deduce who in earth the stranger was. Clearly familiar with Rafe, and close. Close enough to be on a first-name basis, and to be the first to see him, by the looks of it. Her replacement? Rafe’s newest card?   
  
It seemed the stranger was studying her in quite the same way –not quite meeting her eye and instead distracted by the small but present bump of her stomach. She’d said, “Are you his assistant, or--”  
  
The tone hadn’t been lost on her. She just didn’t think to respond to it immediately. “Just a friend. Why, are you?”   
  
The other woman laughed mirthlessly, and when her face neutralised and she looked like she’d never smiled in her life. “Oh, not at all. Rafe and I go far back.” She had clearly been feeling for a nerve to strike. She had clearly underestimated Nadine. At her inertia, the stranger lifted a hand. “Daphne, by the way. And you must be Nadine –word gets around, after all.”  
  
Nadine had no time for any of this. She was beginning to regret even coming, to be perfectly honest. It seemed like the type of punishment Rafe would bestow. Silent, she waited for some other veiled insult, uninterested in what the word was or who was saying it. New York was proving to be an even more dangerous and ugly city than she’d thought before, and the socialites were perhaps the main hazard.   
  
At her silence, Daphne had said. “He’s sleeping, by the way. Maybe you should come back some other time.”   
  
Nadine had pushed past her, tired of the game. “I’ll take my chances.” She said, and opened the door behind Daphne with a curt haste, closing it gently as soon as she was inside. The escape was instantly relieving.   
  
But then, she was there with him.   
  
True to Daphne’s word, he was sleeping, lying on his back with his arms at his sides. It was an unnatural position anyway –not least because Nadine knew he always preferred to sleep on his side –left, always. As she edged closer, she managed to get a better look at him. And that only seemed to make things worse.   
  
She didn’t know how he had spent their time apart, but he looked worse for it. Even outside of the pale, vaguely green look about his face, he looked thin and exhausted, as if not having eaten properly in a week. The white, airless quality of the lights in the room made his face look older. He needed to shave, too, the pretty hollow of his jaw obscured by thick stubble.   
  
Was she glad to see him? Alive, certainly. But otherwise?  
  
Memories of his words came back to her. Rafe reviled her, sometimes, and scared her –but made her laugh, sometimes, too. There had never been a limit to his hospitality or any real fault in their sexual chemistry. He had been passionate and exciting and intense in every way that he’d been hotheaded and dysfunctional and cruel.   
  
Nadine had sat in the chair beside him and taken a few minutes. His unconsciousness was a clear blessing: no questions asked about her leaving or her re-appearance. It gave her the freedom to just sit, for a few minutes, looking over his tired, scored body. She knew they’d be sedating him, and isn’t so afraid to reach over and push a long, curved strand of hair off of his forehead, finding it dry, but soft.   
  
Rafe had murmured in his throat, and turned his head slightly, and it was so sudden that Nadine drew back with a flinch, feeling an unmistakable movement in her stomach. Startled, and uncomfortable, she rose to standing in sudden regret. She shouldn’t have come.   
  
She departed before he could wake, and left no trace, and saw no nurse.   
  
But Nadine did come)  
  
-  
  
After another day, Rafe feels up to walking.  
  
In the privacy of the room, he sits on the edge of the bed and readies himself for a few steps. They’ve lessened his morphine dosage, and he feels starkly lucid in comparison to the last few blurry days. One of the nurses told him that he was admitted four days ago, but it feels like a suspended, strange couple of hours, instead.   
  
He’s afforded some dignity in the act. None of his own clothes, yet, but at least the catheter is out. Thankfully, he was asleep and sedated at the time, and probably recovering from Daphne, too. He hasn’t forgot what she said, either. About Nadine, being here. It makes no sense to him, but God, does it make him feel better.   
  
Taking a breath, he lets one leg drop onto the floor, flinching slightly at the cold before joining it with the other. He’s been advised to take his time, and be patient with the healing process because of all the damage to his stomach muscles. Apparently, had the knife gone just a little left or right or however, he’d have bled out and died. The stab to the back could have left him paralysed, or with a punctured lung.   
  
Instead, it’s just left him irritated, and jumpy.   
  
With one hand on the bed, he steadies himself and stands up, feeling a far-off warmth down his front that blossoms to pain in a moment as his other hand presses against his bandages again. It’s far more comfortable to bend slightly, and as undignified as it looks, he can live with it.   
  
He takes a few steps, slowly, ignoring the burn of it. He makes it to the window, more or less, and has never been more relieved to lean heavy against the wall and look out onto the city. It’s still there, and moving and churning noisily all the time he’s been recovering. Rafe has always liked that about New York. Even as a child, he liked it, but maybe that’s just because Father had hated it so desperately.   
  
Corners begin to repeat as he walks around the room a few more times, slowly. In a few days he’ll be home –and then what? There’s a dig in Naples that he’ll probably fly out to and fund, but that’s not until March, and even then, it’s just a distraction from everything he fears. Business has continued without him, and he’ll have to get back into the loop. He’ll ski in Switzerland in April like he always has.   
  
Only, now, it all seems so –so pointless. God, he’d poisoned himself with hoping, for all that time, picturing wood cabins and open fireplaces and spiced cider with her, all of it. Bermuda in the summer, lying side-by-side under the sun, fucking under the palms and on the sand and in every capital city they’d go to.   
  
Rafe has never been very good at dealing with rejection. It has never made much of any sense to him, because he’s always offering them everything; the lifestyle, the world. The moon on a string, if she’d like it, and best of all: with him. Is Nadine really foolish enough to say no?   
  
(She isn’t necessarily the first. Rafe has never been the falling-in-love type; he’s never been much for relationships and even when he has been, he liked to be the one to walk first. Nadine is an exception to that –as was the Englishman he’d spent some of his twenties sweet on.)  
  
What a waste, Rafe thinks, to spend all of that time with somebody, only to find them a stranger, surprising and unknown. Usually, it’d be fine, he’d move on –but this is all a little more complicated. Not least of all because they haven’t had a real ending yet. A goodbye. He already knows he isn’t done seeing her, and that should be comforting –if it weren’t for the complications. Well; _complication_ , rather.  
  
He tires himself out with all off the pacing and retires to bed after a while, going through his calendar again, trying to renew the anticipation he’d felt that escapes him now. His flights to Naples are already written in on the first Monday in March, squeezed in under a million things. He keeps March it’s fullest, to avoid thinking of Mother. There was no goodbye there, either. No real ending.   
  
He remembers some of her last words to him –how she’d come into his room as he was bedding down to sleep and sat on the edge of the bed and told him how she looked forward to seeing him again, in the summer.   
  
Rafe had been tired, but he remembers it vividly. He’d asked her if she’d still be around, in his own way. And what had she said?   
  
‘ _Of course’_. She had looked him right between the eyes and said it even though she knew it wasn’t true. Even though she knew she wouldn’t even make it to June. ‘ _I’m not going anywhere just yet_.’  
  
How could she do that to him? No even just to lie, but to let him believe, all through the rest of winter, sitting in class and staring out at the polo team practising and thinking about her standing there in her boots. How could she let him hope like that –when all along, she knew? God, she didn’t even call for him in those last, fatal days.   
  
Did she love him so little that she didn’t even want to see his face, before she died? Was it that he looked too much like Father? Were his edges too sharp?   
  
There are no answers. He knows that, but it still leaves him wishing to search. All he has are his memories. He won’t ask Father –won’t go near the man until he’s good and dead and Rafe can squeeze the last few pennies out of him and put him in the damn ground. There’s no justice in his still being alive. Not when Mother died so young, barely sixty, when so many things were beginning.   
  
Forget about it, he tells himself, and plays solitaire until his eyes hurt and the room is even darker. Eventually, a nurse comes around to bring him dinner and lets him no that things are looking good (as good as can be after you’ve nearly died, that is) and in a day or two he’ll be discharged.   
  
Rafe has no real interest in eating –too lucid to pretend to enjoy it, and the moment he’s left alone he sits up and finds the edge of his hospital gown. He lifts it curiously to find two separate stiff white patches taped to his skin. They’re evenly applied and still look fresh, so it’s no real trouble to find the edges of one and peel back the corner, slightly.   
  
He doesn’t exactly know what to expect –he didn’t exactly get a good look when it happened, and only remembers how warm his blood was. How soaked his shirt had been. It’s almost disappointing to reveal the wound itself, clearly deep and about four inches across, stitched so neatly. With an apprehensive finger, he feels the stitches, finding some slight enjoyment in the pain it causes, still tender as all hell. He’s drawn to the blood of the thing.   
  
It’s definitely going to scar, he knows. But he can live with that.   
  
-  
  
In the morning, his assistant asks for a status report to pass on.   
  
So Rafe asks one of the nurses for one.   
  
He’s told he’ll get his freedom tomorrow, and Rafe is both pleased and nervous at the prospect. He passes the message along, and wanders curiously through the news about him. It’s strange to see his name like that –another victim, could be anybody, famous in the worst sort of way. Rafe has never been much for publicity, anyway. Even from a young age, he never could get the hang of calling Father an ‘inspiration’ and convincing anybody.   
  
Though he’s not sure he likes the narrative of the victim any better than that of a bratty legatee: but they sure beat out being featured in tabloids as one of the ’50 richest under 50’.   
  
Exposure to that sort of thing always made him wary of women. He remembers Father re-marrying when he was maybe twelve or so, and he remembers being sat down and warned about entrapment and pre-nups and pregnancies as the greatest threat to him. It ended up being sort of convenient when he was fifteen and his only real friend on the fencing team pulled him into the locker room one day and kissed him and he realised that the joke was on Father after all for sending him to an all-boys academy.   
  
It crossed his mind at the very beginning of this whole thing, when they’d been at that beautiful estate and Nadine had ruined a perfectly good mood. That she’d planned this.   
  
Not that he held on to that notion for long, though. He’s a lot of things, but he’s not paranoid.   
  
No, she’s not doing this to spite him –in fact, he can’t fathom a single reason for her actions. The whole thing is so removed from him. Rafe has never thought, even for a moment, about having children. He doesn’t even socialise with those people. He hadn’t been lying to Daphne an inch when he’d said to her that he’d be probably be a horrible father –despite how difficult he usually finds it to admit his shortcomings.   
  
Rafe tries not to dwell on it. There’s nothing he can do from his hospital bed, anyway, and there are a million things that could happen. Nothing is in stone as far as he knows. There’s still time for Nadine to see sense –and though he knows he shouldn’t think it, miscarriages do happen. It would be upsetting for her, sure, but he’d take her somewhere far away and they could forget all about it and move on.   
  
He’s thinking about Thailand, actually, when his assistant tells him that she’s arranged a car from the hospital tomorrow so he doesn’t have to drive. Somebody –probably her, will come around at ten to bring a change of clothes and escort him home.  
  
Fine by him. He’ll shower in the morning. For now, he might as well make the last of the weak morphine drip.   
  
His place will be empty when he gets there, and God only knows how he’ll sleep if he’s not medicated.   
  
-  
  
The morning doesn’t come any gentler. Despite how fragile he feels, he knows, he has to face the day.   
  
A nurse wakes him, coming by to check his vitals. It’s breaking light out of his window and must be close to nine in the morning when he rouses, frowning drowsily at his surroundings and wishing he could sleep some more. He probably has the time, given that nobody will be here for him so early, but he abhors lateness and laziness. When the nurse goes, he drags himself out of bed wearily and goes straight to the bathroom.   
  
Turning the light on is desperately unpleasant, and he squints grumpily as he pisses. One of his hands comes up to scratch the side of his face, and finds it rough with stubble. When he’s done, he lifts both of his arms gently, trying to avoid pulling on his wounds, and finds the ties at the back of his neck. He unfastens them and takes off the gown, leaving it on the floor and turning towards the mirror.   
  
Rafe has always liked to look after himself, and it’s sort of startling to take a look at himself and see such a mess. His hair is dry and shaped badly from where he’s slept. His face looks old and pale, his cheeks hollow, his eyes sunken. God, he needs to shave, and to exfoliate. The only consolation is that he looks rested.   
  
The shower in the hospital bathroom is so tiny compared to the one he has at home. A sad, plastic chair sits in it, and a sign on the wall says that it’s for those who are ‘fainting risks’. Is he? Rafe already feels sorry for himself enough, so he steps around it and presses on his dressings to make sure they’ll hold. They are supposed to be waterproof. He doesn’t know how agonising it would be to get the wounds wet.   
  
He starts the shower. There’s hardly any water pressure but Rafe can’t deny he feels the benefit immediately. It’s warm, at least, and for a few minutes he lets his eyes close and leans hard on the tile, cooling against it. They’ve provided some of the essentials, clear, nasty-looking shampoo and conditioner that’s as opaque and thick and moisturizer. It’s depressing, but it’ll do.   
  
Rafe stays under the jet for an undeterminable about of time. He wants to scrub all of the drowsiness and weakness off of his body. He wants the stab wounds to turn yellow and peel off under the water. It doesn’t matter what he wants, he supposes. The worst is over now, and he’ll just have to live with it.   
  
He’s daydreaming when a knock on the door startles him, and he coughs, calling out in a rusty voice, “Just a second.”   
  
To his word, he really only is a minute before he steps back out into the room with a stiff, nasty towel slung low on his waist. The room itself is actually empty when he finds it, the only change being a small pile of clothes deposited nicely on the edge of his bed. He doesn’t think he’s ever been gladder to see anything so simple before.   
  
Of course, the real challenge comes in dressing. His range of motion is stunted by desperately trying to avoid the pain of pulling on his stitches. It isn’t so bad in his back, but his stomach is terribly tender and it takes a while of undignified shuffling to get his underwear on, and even just that sort of wears him out. He has to take a few moments to collect himself, leaning hard on one hand, using the other to feel over the shirt in his hand.   
  
It’s not how he wants to be found when he hears the handle grate and his door open. He looks up, sort of irritated, and goes to say, “D’you mind--”  
  
“I don’t mind if you don’t.”   
  
Rafe swallows. His eyes shut and his brain sort of clicks like an old desktop crashing, needing a reset before he can even think to look up.   
  
He doesn’t have to. He watches a pair of feet –her feet, draw closer to him, stopping a few metres short. Nadine.  
  
All he had hoped for is just a matter of looking up, but he can’t. Shouldn’t he feel relieved? Shouldn’t he be delirious with joy? No, Rafe feels all cold and empty on the inside, exactly what he’d felt when he watched her depart the last time. Angry –tingling from the kill.   
  
If he was ever to see her again, Rafe had wanted it to be on his own terms. He had never wanted it to be like this –the ugliest prey, still visible weak from where she tore herself out of his life.   
  
But here she is.   
  
Rafe’s jaw is tight like a coiled spring in a loaded gun when he manages to speak. “What do you want?” That’s all he can manage to say. He can’t find it in him to be merciful, at first, or even hopeful.   
  
She steps around the question, carefully. “Good to see you, too.” Is all she says, not unkindly. Drawn to her voice, and drawn to the blood he know there’ll be if he looks at her, Rafe’s gaze travels up her legs a little, watching as they shuffle almost musically. She’s taking off her coat.   
  
Rafe knows how awful he looks. He’s barely dressed, pale as all hell and bandaged up like a corpse dug up and stuck back together at the joints with glue. It wasn’t supposed to go like that –they were supposed to run into eachother at a party or a some other social event where he’d be in his element enough to face her –to not feel so damn vulnerable.   
  
Drawn, again, he can’t help it. He has to look at her.   
  
And as soon as he does he wishes he hadn’t.   
  
Of course she’s still beautiful: her hair a little lighter, her skin clear and lineless, her eyes every bit as alert and brilliant. She’s wearing a scarf that’s not tied and her neck looks elegant and pretty. He follows the shape of her bones to her long arms that trail, one akimbo, the other holding the underside of her swollen stomach. Of course she’s still pregnant, too, only now it’s present and obvious and so fucking unsettling that Rafe has to look away, his face losing it’s colour like a drowned man.   
  
She’s looking at him as if trying to gauge or predict his reaction –a zookeeper with a whip standing brazenly in the cage with a lion. And Nadine’s always been a smart girl; she knows when the ice is thin, which is why her pathetic attempt at placation actually surprises him.   
  
“You look better than I expected.” She says, earnestly. Rafe looks back at her, then, careful to look just above her eyes, pointedly avoiding her gaze. “I was worried about you.”   
  
Worried about him? She’s got a lot of nerve, Rafe thinks, to leave things how she did and then say that. How could she be worried when she was holding a different kind of knife?   
  
“That’s rich.” He tells her, blinking, even though so many parts of him wants to get his hands on her and hold on tighter, this time. Other parts are less forgiving, and Rafe isn’t used to being this uncertain for this long. He defaults to cruelty, overruled by a longstanding desire to get even with her. “Don’t tell me you came all the way here just to patronise me.”   
  
Nadine’s eyes fall to a bleak corner of the floor and she looks suddenly disappointed. He hates that it bothers him. “I’ll wait outside.” She says, quietly. “You clearly need a minute.”  
  
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Rafe only finds the nerve to raise his voice when her back is facing him, suddenly free from the manipulation of her gaze.   
  
Stopping, sighing, she turns only slight back to him. “I didn’t think you’d still be this angry.” She says, and she sounds so earnest. Like the idea of his pain is somehow confusing –like if she’d just waited a little longer, everything would be fine.   
  
“How did you think I’d be?!” Then he’s something more like yelling, watching her wince at the sudden explosion. “After what you did--”  
  
“I didn’t do anything!” Nadine isn’t one bit afraid of him, even now, and matches his volume as she whirls on him. “I told you I was flying out--”  
  
Rafe is quick on her heels to retort. “No, you left it to the last goddamn minute --even after I said that –that I-…” As he draws close to saying it, he watches her face change again, looking vaguely horrified, but piteous most of all. She doesn’t feel the same, even now, does she?   
  
He only has to take on look at her to know. Of course she doesn’t.   
  
The loss of it all must be abundantly clear, because she seems to soften, coming towards him with her shoulders dropped, slowly, until she’s close enough to reach out a hand. “Look,” She says. “I’m done trying to figure out who drew first blood.”   
  
Then, she reaches out and touches the side of his face and Rafe can feel how soft and warm she is. He wishes it didn’t feel so terribly intimate –that it wouldn’t incite such a strong desire in him to be pressed against her, skin-to-skin.   
  
Don’t be distracted, he tells himself. One of his hands moves on the bed, and he thinks he’ll give into the desire to touch her back, but somehow manages to come overcome it. Instead, he presses his palm against the lowest bandage on his stomach and presses gently as if trying to remind her why he’s her to begin with.   
  
Nadine’s hand is still warm against his face, and her eyes are still on his. Eventually, he has to look at her, murmuring, “What do you want, Nadine?”   
  
Maybe it’s because of the look he’s giving her –colder, cautious, but her touch falls away and her demeanour hardens, slightly. “I was going to drive you home.” She says, curtly. “Unless you’d rather someone else do it.”   
  
That’s a test of the things between them if ever there was one. They both need to know the water level after such time has passed: if it’s a swelling, dark wave or meandering under a bridge. But how could he possibly say? Rafe is the product of two such strange forces in the moment she asks.   
  
The most novel, maybe even the strongest, is his absolute urge to hold her again. To see his most private daydreams of her with him in all kinds of places actualised. There are hollow reverberating spaces still inside of him that used to fill when she laughed, or spoke softly to him, side-by-side sleepily in bed. He aches to touch her, and taste her and to be inside of her –to have her belong to him.   
  
But Rafe is the son of his Father before him. And, humiliated by her, he is righteous with the fight and anger she left him with. Some of those hollow space have festered and he wants to punish her, somehow. To draw blood just as she did. To anticipate and enjoy it.   
  
At his silence, she speaks again. “Do you want me to leave?”   
  
And the best parts of Rafe come out in the slight shake of his head, and his gentle, shameful admission of, “No.”   
  
So she asks him, “Do you want me to stay?”   
  
Not all of Rafe is so kind. He looks at her. He shakes his head again.   
  
He doesn’t know.


	9. year of the lion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i could really use support atm bc of life. this chapter also kinda killed me.   
> look! a graphic! http://jfk-d.tumblr.com/post/148217673094/dont-be-distracted  
> massive shoutouts to my main bitches stanzie and harrysflynns
> 
> warnings for sex. not very good sex. idk.

Rafe has too much to say to possibly speak. So he doesn’t say anything at all.  
  
That’s fine by her, it would seem. Nadine looks at him with all of the pity in the world on her face, as if she sees beyond the stiff, white dressings on his stomach, or the hollow of his cheeks and the misery in his eyes. Like she can see him prostrate, lying in his own vomit on the living room floor or banging his head uselessly in El Paso during every sleepless night.  
  
Worse, still: she has the nerve to speak for him. “I’m sorry, Rafe.” Is all she says.  
  
He swallows. He hits her.  
  
It’s no any harder or crueller than how he’d hit Daphne, but the sound fills the room: abrupt and shocking. Rafe’s palm warms from the blow. Distance blooms between him and Nadine as she turns, a hand coming up to her face.  
  
It’s nothing more than justice.  
  
She doesn’t look at him –shocked, probably. He looks at her, though, preparing himself for her to –to hit back or shout or do something. Not just preparing –but waiting. Willing her to. Daring her.  
  
Impudent woman; Nadine’s eyes close for a second as she turns back to him, and she looks him square in the eyes when she speaks.  
  
Her voice is not raised or ragged in any way. With unbreakable clam, she asks him, “Is that it?”  
  
Rafe thinks, for a second, about hitting her again, but then he’s looking at her, and the resentment he’d been filled with the first time he hit her seems to have dissipated. Maybe not forever –maybe just for the moment. But when he thinks about it –he can’t muster another blow. He can’t muster anything at all, so he just lets out a breath.  
  
“That’s it.” He says, tiredly.  
  
Nadine’s hand still hovers by her jaw. She doesn’t look remotely shaken at all. Hell, she was probably anticipating it. Rafe’s chest heaves very slightly in adrenaline, but undeniably a sort of pleasure.  
  
It doesn’t really last –it seldom does, with her, because in a second Nadine is sizing him up again, a liontamer once more, the whip in one hand that twitches in warning. He thinks for a second that Nadine is going to hit him back, at last, but her temper isn’t so short.  
  
She actually smiles. It’s really more of a smirk, and it’s only slight, and if Rafe had to guess, he’d probably say it’s because he’s so predictable. They could have met in a different way or a different place, but the outcome would be the same. She knows, just like he does, that he’s not going to hit her again.  
  
God knows he should, after everything she’s done. He should –but he won’t.  
  
“That’s better.” Nadine says, easily. It really must be –she seems to feel bold enough to sit beside him on the hospital bed, suddenly, and Rafe has to wonder if she really is sorry at all. It sure as hell doesn’t look like it. She doesn’t look like she has suffered from their absence an inch. Not like he does.  
  
No, he’d say she even looks better for it. Her eyes are bright and she seems more rested. Under the airless lights of the room, her skin still looks dark and ageless. Does she flourish away from him, or was it the sunlight in Johannesburg? Rafe looks at her and can’t find a single thing wrong – a single thing worse, and he wants to hate her for it.  
  
But he can’t, really. For whatever the reason, he is relived, foremost, to find her like this. He can’t hate her for that –but from where she sits, the slight of her stomach is accentuated enough that Rafe can hate her for that, at least.  
  
Nadine interrupts his thoughts with her voice—that always purloins his every attention. “D’you feel any better now?”  
  
It takes him a second to realise what she’s asking. If hitting her has made it better –made them even.  
  
God, not even slightly. How can a second of discomfort possibly equate to those nights in El Paso? Those phonecalls? Rafe could climb more onto the mattress and break her arm here if he wanted to, and it still wouldn’t account for the hurt.  
  
They’ll be even when she loves him back.  
  
“Nothing’s changed.” Rafe says, emptily. He looks at her and knows that she doesn’t feel the same –that she doesn’t want to.  
  
But she didn’t before, did she? And he lived with that. God knows he’d settle for living with it again.  
  
Witheringly, his gaze turns to her. She looks serious once more, as if his answer matters. What can Rafe say? He coughs, and presses a palm against the lowest dressing as if to make sure it’s still closed, because he feels cut open.  
  
“Rafe--”  
  
“Wait outside.” He blinks. God, he doesn’t want her to see him like this –he never did. When he does look at her, he does his best to look as unbreakable as she did. “I’ll get dressed.”  
  
Nadine doesn’t press. If anything, he seems glad. Rising, she nods, taking her coat with her and crosses to the door. The sound of her footfalls fill the room Rafe wants to leave all of his suffering in. She pauses by the door to give him a last look –not dissimilar to the one she’s given him before she left, and then she goes.  
  
It takes him a few seconds to get his bearings. At his right, on the bed, are some trousers, folded, but he barely feels up to moving. He feels over the wounds on his stomach again and knows he should ask for help. But all his rage, and all his pride won’t allow it.  
  
So he finds a way to manage, eventually.  
  
-  
  
Nadine drives. Rafe is relegated to the passenger’s seat.  
  
He doesn’t mind –leaning back bonelessly in his seat, exerted from the walk down to the car. He watches the hospital in the wingmirror as it shrinks before his sight. The place he was at his most vulnerable grows smaller and smaller until it has all but disappeared, and the moment it goes, he feels better.  
  
Nadine doesn’t say anything, and he’s sort of grateful. They’ll talk when they need to talk. Rafe has questions and accusations he can’t keep quiet, forever, but his primary concern is getting home.  
  
Though, it only just beats out convincing her to stay. Rafe doesn’t know how he’ll survive without the morphine, much less sleep, and he knows he’ll feel all the better if she’s there, beside him in bed.  
  
The thought isn’t on his mind. They speed through half-known streets and slow in queues on the avenue. Nadine drives with the radio on, and every time Rafe thinks he is bold enough to say something, her hand will twitch for the volume or her fingers will tap as if she’s enjoying a song and he loses the nerve.  
  
There’s no telling if she’s just going to abandon him at his apartment building or come inside. God knows they have enough to talk about, and if she’s going to disappear again, he’d have thought she would be talking by now. Maybe Nadine is fine with everything –really. She’s got what she clearly wants after all –a baby.  
  
For the moment, he takes the silence as a good sign. A sign that they’ll talk later –even if he has no idea where to start. When Rafe thinks about what he’d like to say, a million things rise to the surface at once, accusing and vindicating her in the same breath to the point of chaos. And he’s afraid to say anything to begin with, because it’s not going to come out like he wants to say it, and Nadine’s prejudices will only change it.  
  
So Rafe doesn’t say anything.  
  
-  
  
Somebody has cleaned the place, Rafe realises, when he unlocks the door.  
  
He forgot, somehow, that things have continued as normal for everybody else. There’s no reason a housekeeper wouldn’t have been by. There’s no reason that the world should have stopped turning just because of what happened to him. There’s no reason he should be so important.  
  
And he knows the place would be too overwhelming for him alone –but amazingly, he’s not alone.  
  
Not that Rafe had asked her to come, or to stay. Not that he’s said a damn word.  
  
There he is, standing in his cloakroom, watching her take off her shoes like a hundred times before. And there’s Nadine, wanting to be there. Choosing to be.  
  
Rafe looks at her and keeps expecting to feel relief. To feel whatever the opposite of the avalanche is –the tight, familiar feeling that used to grip him before he knew what it is. He looks at her and anticipates it, but nothing comes. Inwardly, he knows to be relieved, or to be satisfied. But all he feels is empty –on the edge of his seat and afraid to look away, for at any moment she might change her mind.  
  
Unable to keep the feeling quiet, he looks at her, and tries to sound steady when he murmurs, “Nadine--”  
  
She knows the tone. She steps around it.  
  
“Are you hungry?” Her hand lingers over the peg that her coat is hung on, giving her something to look at to avoid his gaze. The curve of her body is distracts him, momentarily.  
  
“No,” Rafe says, eventually. He probably is hungry –but doesn’t feel anything, really. Lost, if anything. Back at the hospital, he’d been so overwhelmed that now he feels like he’s on the comedown from E, but instead of his brain being dry of happiness, it’s devoid of anything.  
  
Realistically, he does need to eat. He needs to shave, too, and it wouldn’t hurt to wash the last of that place off of him. But how can he –if at any moment while his back is turned, she could leave?  
  
The uncertainty is too great, and Rafe wishes to spare himself another ache, and another humiliation. He leans heavy on the wall that separates the cloakroom from the living room and hears himself say, “You can go now, if you want to.”  
  
His eyes face forward but his gaze loses itself in the midspace, waiting for an answer. Waiting to hear her put her shoes back on and go, and leave him in the tidy, empty space of it all. His ears strain to detect any kind of movement, or consequence of sound, but there comes none.  
  
Eventually, Nadine speaks, and she sounds much closer than Rafe had anticipated when she says, “I know.”  
  
Rafe has to look at her, then. He can’t extract or infer anything at all from her words. They’re too straightforward, and he hates that he isn’t surprised. Nadine isn’t one to make herself too well-known. When his eyes find her, her hand is still hovering over her hanging coat, but her body is turned towards him.  
  
She looks serious when she asks him, “Is that what you want?”  
  
“What?”  
  
Nadine’s head cants very slightly, and her eyes are kind. She’s trying to coax honesty out of him, he realises. Trying to make him unafraid of telling the truth. When it seems that she’s done enough, she asks again. This time, clearer. “Do you want me to leave?”  
  
Rafe flatlines, for a second. “I don’t know.” He sighs, leaning hard on the wall that separates the cloakroom and living room. “I –I don’t even know why you’re here.”    
  
He knows why he wants her to be there –to tell him things are different, this time. That the distance helped clear her head, and what she wants is New York, nighttime all the time, just the way things were. But what he wants doesn’t matter. It didn’t before, and it doesn’t now. Nadine looks hesitant to speak, and he doesn’t blame her for it. She’s not going to say what he wants to hear.  
  
So, at first, she doesn’t say anything, and Rafe wonders if she’s going to leave.  
  
But she doesn’t –not right away. She looks at him, seriously, and says, “I was in the city anyway.” God, the way she says it –so disdainfully, like the suggestion she might come all this way for him is preposterous. Silly, even. “But I –I was worried about you.”  
  
“Sure you were.” He can hardly listen to it. “The phone was just ringing off the goddamn hook--”  
  
“Rafe, for god’s sake!” Nadine’s voice doesn’t flare in anger, but in this controlled, tired sort of way, like the words are boring and predictable. “No, I didn’t call.” She says, without any remorse. “But that doesn’t mean I wanted to see you dead. Or –or hurt.”  
  
How glad he should be to hear it –to hear he say, one way or another, that she cares. To know she came to see him survive this of her own accord. Yet gladness is the last thing Rafe thinks to feel. No, the irony is what hits him, and he would think to laugh if they weren’t the only practical joke in this entire city.  
  
Now she cares? God, she can say it all she wants, and Rafe can hit her has hard as he likes –it changes nothing  
  
“You didn’t want to see me hurt?” He echoes her, his voice slow as if he’s trying to understand. But Rafe does understand, and it pushes him to disbelief. If she were so worried, she would have called, or at least answered. She would have listened to him, instead of getting into that damn taxi, and giving him that damn picture--  
  
The picture.  
  
That’s why she’s here.  
  
“Oh,” He says, his mouth crooked, unsure of how exactly to feel. He turns his body towards hers and takes another look at her. “Oh, Nadine.” He figures out how to feel, eventually, a hand coming up to press against his eyes, unable to even look at her. Now he wants desperately to be able to believe her. To take her at her word that she cares, and she’s not just here because she’s pregnant. Rafe’s voice is smaller when he speaks. “Don’t tell me you’re here because –because of that--…”  
  
His other hand –the one not covering his eyes, gestures vaguely to her stomach. Silence extends between them, momentarily, and Rafe wishes that she’d –she’d so something that makes any sense. He wishes her mouth would open and she’d tell him that her mind has changed. Worse, he wishes for some kind of miracle, where her cells would reject the change, and it would be over, quietly, just like that.  
  
Nadine’s voice is less sure when she speaks. The authority that was there before is now lost. “It’s part of it.” She tells him honestly, quick to clarify. “We don’t have to talk about it.”  
  
He uncovers his eyes, slightly, and tries to find hurt in her face, or disappointment. To try and tell if she’s lying about it, and this is the only reason she’s here, within distance to touch. He had forgotten, clearly, how unreadable she is when she wants to be.  
  
“There’s nothing to talk about.” Rafe says, witheringly. He’s about to turn to go, but doesn’t miss the slight flinch of her jaw, like she wants to say something. Like she wants to tell him he’s wrong. Why would she? She can’t possibly want him to be involved in this; not after months of silence. Not after telling him, what feels like years ago, at Clover Club, when she’d said ‘I don’t expect anything form you’.  
  
But Nadine doesn’t say anything else, and doesn’t move, either, as if waiting on Rafe. The whip is out her hand, and now the liontamer is at the mercy of her prey –him.  
  
Rafe doesn’t feel light talking about it –or anything. He feels exhausted by the conversation, and suddenly the reality of the last few days seems to catch up with him: of Daphne, of dying, thereabouts. Of Nadine and for all that she ‘cares’.  
  
She’s still standing there, looking at him, waiting to know if he wants her to stay or not. Rafe never answered her question. He didn’t answer it before. Nothing’s changed.  
  
Turning, Rafe waves a hand to her like it doesn’t matter. “I’m going to lay down.” He tells her, shortly. “You do what you want.”  
  
Rafe doesn’t look back at her when he walks slowly down the hall, and into the master bedroom. Gently, he eases into laying, over-the-covers, curled on his left side to avoid the soreness of his back and stomach. He doesn’t listen out for the door, or her footsteps.  
  
Or, at least, he tries not to.  
  
-  
  
A creak of the door wakes him. Rafe hadn’t realised he’d fallen asleep.  
  
Lifting his head, he looks up to survey the room. The light in the room is the same, and clock he’d seen on his nightstand as he’d walk in has only gained on ten or so minutes more. He doesn’t exactly notice Nadine behind him until he feels the mattress dip, and he rises, startled. “Nadine?”  
  
“Relax.” She tells him. Her voice is close –closer than he expected, small but kind. He can feel her shift, and there’s a hand on his shoulder, lightly resting there, warm and unbearably intimate.  
  
It’s not just the placement of her hand that’s so intimate, but her very being there, in his bedroom, in his apartment and his city. Wanting to be there. Choosing to stay out of pure desire. God, what a gift to be given –the tightening of his throat and the warmth that blooms in his stomach just to have her there.  
  
Nadine doesn’t move to lie next to him, but merely moves her hand in a stroking gesture. “I can leave you to sleep.” She offers.  
  
At peace, Rafe relaxes his neck and lets out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. “I’m not tired.” He says, despite how misleading it might seem. Physically, he’s had more sleep in the last few days than in a usual week, but emotionally? By now, he only wants to sleep just to process it all.  
  
Her hand is still warm on him. He wants to lean into it –into her, but then her hand comes flat to stroke down his back, and brushes the stiff dressing on his back.  
  
Rafe hisses at the sudden spike of pain. His legs tense. His body turns away, and Nadine, equally startled, retracts her hand to assess the damage of his reaction. Her face is frozen in a caution he’s not used to. Still reeling, he murmurs, “That’s still tender, you know.”  
  
Nadine huffs out a small laugh, and it brings the red line on her neck to prominence in his vision. He realises that, even after all this time, he’s never asked about it. It might have been there a decade or just a few years, still a strident red, still so visible that it must have been a hell of a thing to behold when it was fresh. It’s almost funny that she’s here, sat on his bed where she’s been many times before, and she is still a question mark to him.  
  
One of his hands comes up to touch it, his fingers gracing the side of her neck while his thumb traces the line of the thing. Beneath his hand, she feels so soft –the most vulnerable part of her body, and while he joy is, Nadine is clearly not such a fan. She pulls away, with what looks like discomfort shining vaguely in her eyes.  
  
As if to distract him from it, she says, “You’ve got some now.”  
  
“Hm?” He shifts to leaning to get a better look at her.  
  
“Scars.” She explains. It’s really only then that he thinks it –that the bruising might turn yellow and peel off but the marks will be there forever. Rafe isn’t sure this is an incident he wants a permanent reminder of. “They’ll make you look dignified.” She smirks.  
  
“I looked dignified anyway.” Rafe tells her. He thinks so, anyway, with his greying hair and serious disposition. Nothing could fit the description more. It’s hard to tell if she’s being serious or not, regardless, so he errs on the side of pride for the sake of still feeling so –well, he hesitates to use the word fragile, but that about sums it up.  
  
When he looks up, he realises that Nadine is looking at his eyes as if in challenge. “Show me.” She says, seriously, and for a second he thinks about asking her for the story of hers. But it’s not the time, he thinks, and he shouldn’t try to hold more than he can stand to carry.  
  
Self-conscious, suddenly, he coughs dryly and turns slightly away from her. “I’m sure you’ve seen worse.”  
  
She laughs, again. “Oh, definitely.” It’s of such ease to her –but then, she’s always had a knack for this kind of danger. Any kind, really. Nadine can’t even bring herself to fear his anger like others would –a tamer with her whip, and it’s no year of the lion.  
  
One of her hands comes to press gently on his chest, and they both find eachother’s eyes as if searching for permission or resistance. She’s not generally cruel, and does seem to wait at his word, noting the hesitance in his body language, and then the gradual, resistant kind of a way he turns to lean back on one hand, his other at the hem of his shirt.  
  
She doesn’t force the interaction. It’s of Rafe’s own accord that he pulls it up to where his ribcage starts, wanting, he decides, to show her all that he’s suffered. Her hands are the ones that start at the loose corner of the lowest dressing, working carefully but with practise. Nadine has done this before –and she’ll do it again, probably.  
  
Teasing it off, she peels back enough to witness the puncture. The inside of the bandage is stuck with brown, copper blood that’s drying, and the blue stitches seem so aggressive against the skin there. It’s undeniably ugly to his own eyes –torn open and desperately pulled back together. He looks up at Nadine to try to gauge her own reaction, but it’s difficult to say.  
  
One of her fingers traces along the line of it, and presses ever-so-slightly, forcing him forward in a sound of pain, his free hand abandoning his shirt to take hold of her wrist. “Sorry.” She says. She goes to withdraw but he’s still holding her wrist. He’s still looking at her, and when she looks back, seriously, questoningly, he tilts his head as if asking for permission.  
  
Pulling, slightly, she draws close until she’s above him and their faces are closer –almost touching. Rafe thinks that she’s going to kiss him, then, when she moves, but instead, her hand comes up to hold his jaw. “You need to shave.” She says, looking right at him.  
  
Rafe feels himself swallow. He nods, absently, and then her touch withdraws. She climbs off of the bed with a little difficult, and he watches, feeling himself unable to move, his shirt still high enough to expose a pale strip of skin. Cold, suddenly, he pulls it down and watches her wander out of the room.  
  
Was it something he’d said? Are thing –are they different now: friends, lovers or nothing?  
  
He thinks about calling after her until she resurfaces in the doorway, with a bowl of water that steams in the cold room. She places it on the desk by the door, and asks, absently, over her shoulder, “Is your razor in the bathroom?”  
  
Blinking, he nods, and then thinks to say. “In the cabinet.”  
  
When she re-appears, there’s a towel slung over her arm, and her hands are occupied with the cream, and the brush, and the razor. His mouth opens as if to asks but she beats him to the punchline. “Your hands are going to be too shaky.” She says. “Sit on the edge of the bed.”  
  
Rafe attends to the order –something about the way she pulls a command is always arresting and a little irresistible. His feet touch the floor and he scratches his face, suddenly nervous. “Have you done this before?” He motions to the razor she’s opening out –a cutthroat, glistening coyly, an inherited tradition.  
  
And when she turns, Nadine is smiling, predatory. “No,” She says, taking a few steps towards him. “But I’ve got the general idea.”  
  
She advances on him, then, brandishing the razor, and Rafe tries to sound as calm, as he can, getting out a small, hollow laugh. “Nadine, I’m sure I can--”  
  
Her hand comes up to silence him again, gentler, this time, light against his cheek. She takes a few more steps until her foremost leg is between his knees, and her lips are at his ear. “Trust me.” Is all she says, in a hard but warm voice.  
  
Then she kisses him –the shell of his ear, for the first time in what could be lifetimes, and Rafe thinks maybe it is the year of the lion after all. The sensation fills him, and lingers even after she has pulled away to look at him. “Okay?”  
  
God, he has missed her body so much –the feel of her, and he fears her kissing him again, because if she asked for his eyes right now he’d probably crawl to fetch a scalpel. That isn’t what he says, though. Instead, he swallows again, and takes in a breath through his nose.  
  
“Okay.” He nods.  
  
She starts out very gently, using the towel to wet his fac. The water is a little hot for his comfort, but he tries not to mind. Nadine is right about steady hands –Rafe is trembling slightly, but her touch is precise and steady as she finishes lathering the cream, and then goes for the razor.  
“You don’t have to u--”  
  
Nadine brings the blade a little closer and shakes her head. “Shh.” She urges him, lifting his chin slightly, and then pressing the warmed metal to his face. Rafe holds his breath for the first stroke, every fibre of his body tensing as her hand moves in a downward motion, carefully. He thinks that his fugitive heart will beat out of his chest with the way it’s going. His eyes find her face and he watches her concentration, as if searching for reassurance.  
  
Then the knife is gone, and he exhales loudly.  
  
“How’s that?” She asks him, in a hot murmur.  
  
“Fine.” He whispers. Rafe’s pulse is still thrumming. His shakes have now started to become more about anticipation that blood sugar or anything else. He’s so nervous that he’s practically excited.  
  
Nadine cleans the blade again, and adjusts his chin before smiling down at him. “Just keep still.” She says.  
  
They’re silent for the rest of it. Her touches are so stately and specific, but the pressure and fear in Rafe doesn’t ease any. If anything, it turns to excitement, every time he feels the metal on his skin, knowing how wrong it could go, putting his safety and comfort and life, to a degree, entirely in her calm hands. Eventually, she lifts his chin to go for his neck, and Rafe thinks deliriously that all of him wants all of her. He can feel how hard he is against his thigh, and wants nothing more for her to abandon the razor altogether and just touch him.  
  
Nadine seems not to notice, at first, until she’s at the most dangerous part. She moves closer, her knee coming to rest on the mattress between his legs as she works. As the knife comes up to where his pulse is thundering, he feels his cock twitch and she must feel it, because her eyebrow raises, and her eyes flutter briefly.  
  
“Careful.” She tells him, tantalisingly. “This is the tricky part.”  
  
It takes what feels like years for her to finish, and by the time Nadine has retired the razor, Rafe feels like he’s burning up. His mouth is entirely dry, and he thinks if she wanted him to, he’d beg for release. But Nadine says and does nothing right away but dry his face, admiring her work for a second.  
  
“Better?” She asks.  
  
He doesn’t answer her –he can’t. He grabs a fistful of her shirt and pulls her down until she is on her hands and knees, above him on the bed. She doesn’t waste time pretending to be reticent, and leans down to kiss him. She starts in the centre of his lips and moves, passionately, until she’s kissing his jaw, and down onto his neck and Rafe thinks he might lose his mind.  
  
She adjusts her weight to free one hand and uses it to find a way to the button his pants, prying them open carefully and finding her way into his underwear.  
  
Rafe drops his head back against the sheets the moment she’s touching him, coughing out some kind of groan. It means they part for a second while he is momentarily overwhelmed, but that’s all the time he gets before Nadine is kissing him again, biting his bottom lip, demanding more. She has missed this just as much, he thinks, deliriously.  
  
God, Rafe could kiss her forever, he thinks –in fact, he’d never like to stop, and only relents when she pulls away to take off her shirt. Pleasure consumes him. He takes no notice of anything but the look on her face when his mouth moves hotly over one of her breasts, feeling her excitement grow before moving on to the other, one hand holding her while the other tries to take care of her trousers.  
  
Her zip is on her side, and it’s awkward, but doesn’t take too long. She leans up for a second to get some air, and presses a hand down on his chest, forcing his back harder onto the bed. In pain, he hisses again, and she slows, removing some of the pressure, her eyes looking to his for an assurance.  
  
“Go easy.” Is all he says, breathlessly. Nadine nods, slightly, looking not a bit stifled. She leans back on her heels to help him undress, until he’s naked save for his shirt, watching her peel off her trousers and then climb back to him. She smiles, eagerly, as she takes his length in her hand, finding it hot and deliciously wet at the tip.  
  
Rafe cries out, again, a little weaker than the first time, sucking in a breath to adjust to the power of the sensation. The moment he feels her warmth against him he leans up, craning his neck uselessly to try and watch, wanting to witness the way she looks as he fills her. Even before the fact, her pussy feels divine against him and he almost doesn’t notice the burn of his stomach from leaning in such a way.  
  
When she grinds down against him, it’s even better, but even more painful, too, and Nadine must see the conflict in his eyes, because she strokes her palm on his chest, where a spare spattering of hair is, pressing lovingly. “Relax.” She says, the second time in as many hours.  
  
Rafe leans back, slowly, and nods to her. That’s all the incentive she needs, and then she’s sinking down onto him, gasping lightly as she takes him. Rafe can’t even manage a single noise, his breath stuttering and stuck in his throat. The feeling is unbelievable and it grips him in his entirety, unable to think or move or do a single thing but experience it.  
  
His eyes close, and she begins to move, slowly at first, rising and coming forward slightly before sinking back onto him, filling herself up again. After a few seconds of being paralysed by it, he manages a strangled breath of passion and opens his eyes, unable to focus right away in the wild heat of it all. When he does, he watches her take him once more, her own eyes closing, her body surrendering to it.  
  
She begins to move faster, but the hot, painful feeling returns to stab him in his gut, and he has to protest, groaning vaguely, trying to find her in his haze with an outstretched hand. It settles on her thigh, and she slows her pace in response to him, instead going for sensual, deep movements that leave him stinging far less.  
  
Nadine moves like ocean waves, graceful and tremulous, and when Rafe manages to open his eyes again, he can see her head is bowed forward in a reverie of desire and concentration. Her breasts bounce ever-so-slightly and he wishes she were closer so he could taste them –and the want is too much.  
  
The hand on her thigh strokes further up and can feel how much warmer she grows, until he’s curling, slightly, to stroke her with a tentative finger. Nadine’s eyes open as she lets out a small noise, her lips parting as he moves even deeper, taking every inch of him, and Rafe cries out again.  
  
The feeling of her so wet and warm and tight around him is almost too much. His free hand stroke her as best he can, teasing around her clit and working in tiny, intricate circles until Nadine’s thighs are trembling like all hell.  
  
God, the very idea of being inside her as she’s cumming is almost too fucking much, and he feels himself grow closer to his own climax. She continues to move. Taking him in languid, gorgeous movements until her body is shaking like all hell and her breath is stuttering desperately. “T-that –that’s--”  
  
He doesn’t dare stop moving is hands, and watches her hips throw her forward as he back arches drastically. Nadine throws her head back, and he feels her tighten around him as her thighs stiffen. Nearly fucking whimpering, she cums, shuddering, and it throws him over the edge.  
  
His wrist goes taught with the feeling of it building in him, and he grabs onto her thigh as he feels himself release, coughing out a load moan as he finishes just seconds after her, his face red and his chest heaving as he goes lax against the sheets.  
  
His heart thrums aggressively as he recovers for a few seconds, not yet softening inside of her. Nadine is barely holding herself up. She doesn’t withdraw right away, and instead lets herself down gently on the bed next to him, careful not to be on top of him. At first, he feels all kinds of boneless and kind of dizzy, but as the feeling settles, he realises the sharp pain in his stomach that he’d been in for a while.  
  
Rafe exhales deeply and tries to hold on to the sensation of her next to him. He hears the sheets ruffle as she turns slightly onto her side and exhales dreamily. From how close they are, he can smell her hair and the sandalwood of his shaving cream. Nadine’s breathing is already evening out and he thinks he wants to kiss her. He thinks the moment is sort of perfect, too, until she moves away and Rafe misses her skin immediately.  
  
Still hazy with pleasure, he’s practically unafraid to reach out and touch her. He doesn’t feel a bit ashamed to murmur into the sheets, “Stay.” It gives Nadine pause, and she looks at him as if needing to be convinced. So he convinces her. “C’mon, stay.”  
  
Nadine tilts her head, and smiles, but says nothing.  
  
And that’s all she needs to say.


	10. atop a cake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think about deleting this everyday. i don't even like it??????

Nadine stays the night, and by morning, Rafe wakes to a stranger again.   
  
It’s not that sudden. It’s a gradual metamorphosis, he thinks. For every time he notes the shape of a body he doesn’t recognise, or the tender care of a hand on her stomach, or even when she is turned away from him that night, still with sleep. Rafe looks at the back of her neck, and the shape of her hair and has no idea what the hell’s going on in her head.   
  
They have been together for –for enough time, now, that he thinks he ought to have figured it out. And maybe he did, for a while, but Nadine’s whims are a prize that changes hands constantly.   
  
Go, her being here was supposed to –to fix these feelings. Rafe had hoped that they could go back to how it was before, or at least pretend well. But now, everything they do that they have done before –arguing, fucking, sleeping besides eachother; it feels different. Before, they had ‘partners’ –that glorious word harbouring no expectation or demand. No tie that ties.   
  
Now, what does he have but the lingering fear that she’s only here because a child needs a father and a man needs a maid?   
  
Rafe continues to watch her as she sleeps, watching the slight shifts and sighs. He wishes nothing more than to be able to join her in that veil of peace, but can’t seem to find it. The stranger –his stranger, is warm next to him, and as she turns slightly, he can see the red scar on her neck in the moonlight. The one he knows nothing about.   
  
One of his fingers traces it as lightly as he can, still leaning over her like this. He thinks that maybe he can identify it by touch –or tell of how it came to be. The assurance of just knowing something about her –something real and trivial but constant might ease him into sleep.   
  
But Nadine is a relatively light sleeper, and flinches when she feels him, frowning with her eyes still closed. She opens her eyes, finding him.   
  
Rafe doesn’t really know what to say. He has to ask her. “You never told me--”  
  
Sleep doesn’t soften her any as he bats away his hand. “It’s the middle of the night.” Her voice is sort of gentle, though, and for a second Rafe feels a surge of fondness instead of being utterly lost. His hand moves towards it again, and she moves away, putting distance between their bodies. “It’s not polite to pry.”   
  
And she says it with enough conviction –enough certainty, that Rafe thinks for once he can stand respecting her wishes. His hand retires to sling over the cage of her ribs, counting alluvial plains as he moves closer to her once more.   
  
It looks as if she’s asleep once more after a few minutes, but she shifts, pulling his arm over more of her, until his hand is sort of limp against her stomach. Her skin is warm there, and he can’t help but feel both curious and reviled all at once. Conspiratorially, he watches her in the dark to scan for signs of consciousness, and waits until she is definietely sleeping again to lean over her.   
  
Swallowing, he tenses his hand very slightly in an effort to extricate himself, but only presses closer to her in the process, his hand nearly flat against the swell of her skin. In her sleep, Nadine lets out a breath and Rafe realises he’ll have to abandon the escape attempt, affectively trapped.   
  
It isn’t so bad until it occurs to him –which it hadn’t, somehow, at all up until now, that it’s really real. The sonogram wasn’t some cruel prank or a shared hallucination. It’s –it’s a baby. Jesus, it’s really happening, and he wishes his hand weren’t trapped. He wishes he wasn’t trapped. That he could sleep besides her, and just her, as they used to do. But there he is, lying with his eyes open, waiting for some divine intervention. For an absolution that will never arrive.   
  
Because Rafe knows if he pulls away, he’ll wake her, and she’ll move away from him.   
  
But God, he wants to.   
  
-  
  
In the morning, he is the first to rise. And he hardly knows what to do with himself.   
  
The apartment is a little cold, so he puts on some pyjamas and starts on the coffee, wandering down the hall. His hair is limp and in his eyes, and he resolves to get it cut before he goes to ski in a few weeks. He sorts it in the bathroom lazily as he waits for the water to boil, and catches himself admiring the job Nadine had done on his face.   
  
As nice as it is, though, it draws attention to the hollow of his face and the starved tired look he’s sporting. He ought to get that fixed.  
  
As he wanders back into the kitchen, something drops onto the back of his beck –something cold and wet, and he whirls suddenly, a hand coming up to feel. He looks around for a few seconds, suspicious, before he looks up. The ceiling is covered in a damp mark that is blooming, and dripping onto the floor slightly.   
  
Another thing to fix. He pours himself a cup and wanders back into the living room, about to email his assistant or housekeeper about the blatant negligence –but stops short. By the cloakroom, on one of the small end tables, is a box that’s still wrapped and neat. He’s lost for a few seconds before he remembers what it is –Nadine’s gift. The gun he’d hapless thought to give her over dinner.   
  
To see it now, with her in his bed should make him feel better about it. And it does, mostly.   
  
He shivers from the cold, but he’s shaking the feeling of last night off of him. The feeling of her stomach. Christ, whatever possessed her to throw it all away like this is beyond him. Even now –even with the realistic, feasible, tangible prospect of a child –their child: with her dark, beautiful skin and his mother’s russet hair--…  
  
For a second he catches himself thinking about it –really thinking about it, and doesn’t think to be so repulsed right away. It’s Nadine that does it. All the good that Rafe thinks he might ever be is brought out around her. He loves her –prefers her above all things, and to see her in anything else would warrant the same affection, surely.   
  
That’s just idealism. The same idealism that had him think, once, that he might do a better job with his own children than either of his parents. The same foolishness that let him feel disappointed by Daphne’s abortion than relieved, and God, isn’t he thankful? Daphne was always too –too cold. Too serious; impossible, really. Rafe had suffered her perfectionism because it matched his own, and no child would have deserved that.   
  
And so what if he loves Nadine, anyway? What does that solve, in this case? Rafe can love her all he wants or not at all and he still won’t want a child. Even if he doesn’t raise it. God, even if he never sees it. It will still take her away from him, and that’s--…Nadine belongs to him. She belongs here. He won’t have her wrenched from New York or his life on account of some whim. Some flaw in her code, somewhere, that’s giving her this delusional desire for a baby.   
  
Rafe shakes the feeling off in flight, again, and takes the box of Nadine’s gift with his coffee back down the hall to the bedroom. He pauses at the door, for a second, and he hates himself for that. He hates that it’s bothering him now, and not –not all those months ago, when it wasn’t a tangible problem. At Clover Club he’d had ample opportunity to tell her to do the smart thing and free them both, but had he?   
  
Nothing close to that. He’d asked her how she felt, for god’s sake. He’d looked at her and couldn’t muster it.   
  
And as he passes through the door and thinks of it again –thinks of telling her what she should do, but as he perches on the edge of the mattress to put his coffee on the night stand, he can see the light pressing up against the slight freckles on her shoulderblade. Rafe’s now-free hand lingers in the air, for a second, wanting to touch her.   
  
There has been enough distance between them. And as she is on her side, the blankets obscure her stomach, so suddenly there is no reason for his hesitation. He reaches out to touch her –but where? The shoulder seems too removed, and to kiss her is far too trite. Instead, his fingertips trace the crook of her neck and follow the deep red line of her scar. It takes not a second for her to stir, her hand snapping up, unfettered by sleep to take his wrist immediately.   
  
Her eyes find his face. Finding no danger there, she blinks, and stretches into sitting up, freeing him. “What’s the time?”   
  
Her voice is all stuck with sleep –and it makes Rafe’s chest feel all tight in a way he has almost missed. Moving closer to her, he rests over-the-covers so that their shoulders are touching. “It’s just gone ten.” He says, and then reaches over the take a drink of coffee.   
  
“Thanks for the coffee.” She murmurs, watching him. “What’s for breakfast?”  
  
Rafe has almost forgotten there are meals to the day. Three of them, in fact. His eating has been so erratic recently, so he’s at a genuine loss for a few seconds, before realisation dawns on him. “We can order something up in a minute.” Nadine makes a noise of small distress but otherwise doesn’t protest, so Rafe shifts the box he’s still holding onto his lap. “I’ve got something else for you first.”   
  
She sits up a little straighter, and looks at him again. “I thought you weren’t the gift-giving type.” She laughs.   
  
Rafe rolls his eyes. “Don’t do that.”   
  
“Do what?”   
  
“Quote me to myself, for god’s sake.” He takes the box, still wrapped so prettily, and lifts it as if in offering, waiting on her word.   
  
Nadine smiles, faintly, and tilts her head away from him. “I said I didn’t want anything.” She sees his displeasure just in time, taking his arm as he goes to clamber off the bed, her tone softening ever-so-slightly. “Just get it over with.”   
  
So he gets back onto the bed, and pushes the box into her lap, not really hurt so much as cranky. “Don’t look too grateful or anything.” He says, as she runs a finger over the print on the wrapping paper and doesn’t make any move to really open it.   
  
Nadine looks at him again, and she’s still smiling. “I’d just really rather have breakfast.” She says. “And--” She lifts the box a few inches off her lap. “—it’s not exactly the season anymore.”   
  
Rafe could choose to be admonished about it all, or annoyed. But she’s here, where he wants her, so he thinks he should be the only one not looking a gift-horse in the mouth. “Jesus, just open it, would you?”   
  
Still smiling, she sort of shakes it despite how heavy it is, and looks at him before tearing a neat strip from the corner. “Well, it doesn’t sound like a lump of coal.”   
  
“Credit me with a little creativity.”   
  
She looks at him with deep amusement at that remark, but says nothing, continuing to unwrap to reveal a sleek wooden case. When most of the paper is gone, she finds the latches at the front. Her finger tracers over a metal embellishment that bears the biggest clue of all. Her mouth even makes the word –‘colt’.   
  
Rafe is practically excited when she latches it open, and then there it is –the first gift he’s ever put thought into giving, really. The engraved silver of it glistens so prettily, and looks almost delicate. The grip is a light, swirling pearl and Rafe waits to hear some noise of excitement or a reserved, proud remark that’s more her style.   
  
But he’s waiting longer than expected.   
  
One of her hands comes easily to pry it out of the case where it sits snugly, ignoring the tools that sit lower in the case. She checks the magazine and tests the weight of it, her face entirely neutral. It’s not exactly how he pictured this would go, so he tries to take the reins of the situation again.   
  
“What do you think?” He asks. Nadine looks at the gun when she speaks.   
  
“It’s certainly pretty.” She settles on, after a few seconds. “And it’s a fine model.” Her face turns towards him and she’s far less fond than he expected when she nods. “Thank you.”   
  
Pretty and fine are not words Rafe shoots for when he does anything. Maybe they are supposed to be practical accolades, but all he hears is a sort of failure. A falling short –not even on Nadine’s part, but on his own expectations.   
  
Not one to be so easily beaten, he sits up a little straighter. “I thought we could find a range or something.” He looks at her, trying to predict her every microexpression. To himself, he hopes for her to smile. For her to say yes, and for them to put down some plans. Anything that will tie her to the city for a little longer, because he doesn’t know when she’ll go –only that she’s likely to.   
  
He doesn’t expect his lady of war –his deadeye, to retire the gun to it’s box so soon. “I’m not going to be shooting for a while.” She says –merciful enough to talk around it. To not sully the morning. Somehow she sees his immediately displeasure though he tries to hide it, and she says, “I’ve never had a personal firearm before. I appreciate the gesture.”   
  
“The gesture.” He echoes, in a hollow tone. Then, not maliciously, but not kindly, he says, “You don’t have to be embarrassed you didn’t get me anything.”    
  
Not that anything seems to phase Nadine. One of her legs stretches out under the sheets. “I did give you something, actually.” She reminds him: it’s the first time she’s mentioned the sonogram to him. The first time she’s explicitly veering into bad territory. “Well, if you bothered to pick it up--”  
  
“I got it.” He says, suddenly, the warmth in his voice drying up. It comes out so much sharper and louder than he expected –almost haltingly. Because if this is her way of steering the conversation to make them talk about it, something has to be done. Startled by himself, and a little embarrassed, he gets off the bed like putting distance between them will ease the sudden tension. “Breakfast?” He offers.   
  
Nadine’s head tilts. Her smile is gone. “Rafe.” She says –so rarely does she say his name that it feels intimate in a strange way. He wants to look at her, then, but can’t quite meet her gaze. “We should talk about this eventually.”   
  
He feels himself tense up. The weakest parts of his body that were pulled open still hurt. Isn’t it amazing how they can go from being close to suddenly seeming a million miles away. Nadine says it and Rafe feels like he’s alone on the red planet again, staring out into the distance at the green and blue of earth, with no air to speak with.   
  
He is silent, though, so Nadine takes the reins again. “It’s not going to go away if you--”  
  
“But it can wait.” Finally, he speaks. “If it’s not going to go away, it can wait.”   
  
Nadine would fight that, usually, but she can see the defeat in his face. Enough damage is visible on him, he thinks. God, he probably reeks of desperation and for once Rafe will accept her mercy on this. He will accept her leaving him be, for the moment, leaving room for the illusion of her in his bed like she used to be.   
  
She nods, eventually, letting him go. And Rafe can pretend, for just a little longer. He lingers by the door and tries to fix things in his own way. “What do you want to eat?” His voice is softer, now. Almost sorry.   
  
“Toast is fine.” Nadine says. She doesn’t really look at him, but makes her move to get out of bed, perching on the other side with her back to him. Another mercy –he can see her bare back in the neutral morning light, but her stomach is hidden from him. He likes her like that. Loves her –in fact. “I have a meeting downtown in a little while.” She says.   
  
Rafe tenses again, very slightly, at the idea of her leaving. He hasn’t a clue if she’ll come back. Well, she ought to if she’s convinced they have so much to talk about.   
  
“I can call you a car.” He offers, no practically standing out in the hall.   
  
Nadine is standing, now. Her back is still to him. “I can walk.” She says.   
  
Rafe knows better than to argue. At least this time she’s settling for breakfast.   
  
-  
  
Hours pass in her absence.   
  
Then it happens.   
  
The phonecall comes in at just before nine, and Rafe rises from his desk to attend to it. As he walks into the living room to pick it up, he sees the sonogram on the table besides his phone, both of them face-down, and Rafe tells himself it’s not some terrible omen as he takes the phone, and answers without looking at the screen. He knows it’s going to be Nadine, anyway, who else would be calling?   
  
“Hello?”   
  
The other line fuzzes ominously, but it is clear as the waters of Nauset when he hears it. The voice comes back to him as if remembering a fever-dream. “Rafael?”   
  
“ _Father_?”   
  
And Rafe feels a streak of cold strike him like lightning. His mouth wants to fall open in shock but snaps shut before he can think to be surprised, his shoulders coming up slightly. Were it not for the surprise of it all, he thinks he wouldn’t feel so terribly sick, but there has been no warning, and Rafe feels like a child again.   
  
“I had heard about what happened to you.” Father says. His voice is still powerful, but old. So old. How is it that he has his wits, still, and the life in his lungs when Mother has been in the ground these last twenty years. Her body is cooling and her horse with her, and Father has the audacity to say “I wanted to know if you’re well.”   
  
He would never muster the word ‘worried’. What a crime it always was to be emotional. To be hysterical.   
  
“Fine.” Rafe hears himself say it with some kind of reluctance. Like he can’t talk back to Father, even now. How long has it been, anyway, since they last spoke? Ten years? Seven? Even before then, what a mystery the man was –the absentee.   
  
Rafe thinks he must have less than a hundred memories of Father interacting with him. And it’s not that he wishes there were more; he just wishes ten of them were –pleasant.   
  
“I imagine you must be in shock.” Father says. Rafe wishes he could infer the tone, but he never could, could he? He remembers wishing even harder, in some cabin in Bismark in the bleak midwinter, seeing the man in the door and not knowing if he was going to place a proud hand on his shoulder or climb on the mattress pad and break his arm. “I hear you were in El Paso recently.”   
  
His jaw grows tighter, silence leaping in defence of his Mother’s memory. The few of them he has left.   
  
“I was.” Rafe says, eventually, in a tight voice.   
  
“Thinking of selling, I assume.” Is all he says. He never says her name. Never says anything about her at all, like her memory has fallen off the face of the earth and she’s just a hallucination Rafe clings to –an imagined comfort of his abject loneliness as a child. Because there were always men around, at schools and academies, at home and on the end of Father’s telephone and in his bed eventually –but Mother was the only woman and he’s trying to take her memory away.   
  
Rafe’s insides ache with loneliness –even worse when Father says, “I know you have plenty of cause to be –emotional, at the moment, Rafael.”   
  
“I’m not--”  
  
“Now, don’t interrupt me.” His hand tenses around the phone. Misery is already starting to fill him in the places Father’s words open, taking on water and sinking. Why doesn’t he just hang up? Is he really still afraid –after all these years, of the consequences? Father isn’t the standover man anymore, but merely a frail, grey old man with nought but the past to his name.   
  
But Rafe can’t bring himself to do a thing but listen. It’s the first time he has heard Father’s voice since Nadine’s pregnancy, and though Father has never once given him real, personal guidance he searches for codes and clues in the man’s voice. Something that’s missing from his own that distinguishes him as a parent.    
  
“I got word that you’ve been intending to go through with a Canadian expansion.” Is what Father says, instead. Just –just work. Business. “And as I said, you’ve cause to be a little emotional at the moment. Perhaps it’s impairing your judgement.”   
  
Rafe only clocks the tone then –disappointment? And –Jesus, he just assumes for a few seconds that the error is on his part. That Rafe is wrong, as usual, and has made some fatal misstep worthy of scorn.   
  
But he hasn’t. He really hasn’t, and it takes him a few seconds to realise that this is his domain, now. That he can talk back to Father now.   
  
“I’m –my judgement is _fine_.” He says, bitingly, after a few more seconds of silence. “It’s already going ahead.”   
  
Is there anything he could say that wouldn’t merit more scorn? No. If only he talked less. If only he smiled more.   
  
“There’s no need to be defensive, Rafael.” He says –and how calm he sounds. Rafe hates that he sounds calm. That he can never tell when or what will turn the summer sky of his tone to sudden, angry thunder. “We both know how you get when you’re upset.”   
  
Rafe knows what he’s talking about. About how Mother died and then Rafe was at college and he took pills and crawled into bed with whoever looked to like him best. Father had taken it as a personal indictment of Rafe, then, too, and has considered the boys he kissed a far more grave and dangerous vice than anything that came in milligram doses.   
  
“Don’t talk to me as if I’m a child.” Rafe says. He’s grown so tire of the conversation –drained, a blood-loss sort of fatigue that makes his lax wrist want to drop the phone.   
  
Just as easily, Father says, “Then don’t have me lecture you like one. The expansion would be foolish, now live with it.”   
  
Rafe doesn’t bite at that. What would be the use? He knows that Father will find a way to hold the reins anyway –and he thinks to himself, then, tragically, that they never could reconcile things, because after Mother died, Rafe hated his breathing too much –and that they were too alike. They still are. How could he ever revile Father for his obsession with control when Rafe would like Nadine atop a cake so much and never let her take a bite?   
  
The irony of it keeps him in some suspense at the end of the line. As if only to prove that he’s no what he’s accused of being: emotional, hysterical –like her.   
  
“Enjoy your retirement.” Rafe says, eventually. Father calls about business because it’s all he ever had –and Rafe should pity him. That he has nothing in his life left to love –not even his only son.   
  
Is that what will become of him? When, eventually, Nadine disappears again?   
  
The thought escapes him when Father speaks. “Of course.” He says, “And I suppose a congratulations is in order for you, too.”   
  
Rafe halts the breath coming up out of him. “What?” He murmurs.   
  
“I hear you’re expecting.” Father sounds pleased –his voice is all thick with some kind of joy. The same Rafe used to hear. What once was disappointment has turned to arrogance like he can’t wait to watch his son’s failure.   
  
And he was never supposed to know –nobody was. Nadine was supposed to see reason and they are supposed to go on with their lives unhindered.   
  
“How did you-- ”Rafe is at a complete loss.   
  
“I’m sure you’re thrilled, Rafael.”   
  
“I--”  
  
Then –silence. Of course he would hang up –even after all this time and the years that have changed them, Father is still the one pulling the strings. The conversation started and stopped at his whim. Rafe realises, sitting there in a new, napalm quiet, that all he had one was try to defend himself. The phone, now silent, is at rest in his hand, ad he thinks about pitching it against the nearest wall.   
  
Congratulations, Father had said, knowing that they are the same.   
  
They were. They are. They will be.  
  
-  
  
Nadine sleeps at her hotel that night. So he sleeps alone.   
  
What does it matter? He’d only think about it. He’d only find a way to resent her autonomy –to hate her for the rebellious timbre of her breathing and how she doesn’t pity him, not one bit. Rafe lies awake and feels over his stitches and thinks about all the healing wounds that aren’t visible on his skin, torn open in the wake of the old man’s voice.   
  
He stares up at the ceiling and wishes one of those nuclear warheads he heard so much about as a young child would burst through the ceiling and give him the sweet, strange mercy of not having to face the morning fog.   
  
She doesn’t call and they spend another day not talking about it. Fine –maybe she’ll wake and feel different. Maybe she’ll wake covered in blood, with nothing at all to speak about. Rafe can wish, after all. It’s only for a second, and however guilty he might feel afterwards, the relief that second affords him is far greater than any notion of morality.   
  
That night, as he turns in bed, he gets what he wants, for the first time on a long time.   
  
He lies in bed as it happens –a home as the roof caves in.


	11. all for myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when will my shameless sufjan references end? never! 
> 
> do people still read this? because what you should be reading is the 'traitors and fools' series, or the 'captain and his quartermaster' series. that's real art. this is honestly just a soap opera. (but soaps are my guilty pleasure)
> 
> this is a long chapter. review to save a life. not literally. my locus of control isn't THAT external.

His eyes are closed.   
  
He’s dreaming, at first; an old dream. Of the beach house in Cape Cod that he used to visit as a child systematically dismantling itself. The walls crumble and dissolve in the wind. The support beams creak and groan –they disappear, too. The roof goes in the middle, first, and it triggers a landslide. And Rafe is still a child in this dream, he is a child every time it comes back to him –the place collapsing onto him in terrible, loud cracks and shatters until the weight of it all is sand and dust on his shoulders.   
  
He makes himself small in fear when it begins, curled up until there is silence, and a dusty, terrified child emerges from the collapsing home, trying to hold onto what used to be, trying to find memories where he can find none. The rubble of the house is the same as the sand of the beach it sits on and the high tide is already claiming some of it.   
  
The dream’s edges blur, and a shattering much closer to Rafe’s core stirs him in the darkness. He hears the keening of structures –and then feels the floor of his own earth shake terribly.   
  
_It’s happening,_ he thinks, deliriously. It’s happening and the rest of this damn highrise is going to collapse on top of him. Clambering in the pitch black, his foot curls in the sheets as he goes to get up and get out. His trapped foot twists and he jerks violently backwards, falling right forward, feeling his nose hit the hard flagstone.   
  
The earth is still, but noise winds from down the hall. Suddenly weak, and dizzy from the hit, Rafe feels wet blood on the side of his face but elects to ignore it, freeing himself from the sheets, steadying himself to standing on one of the bedposts.   
  
He stands there in the darkness and listens hard, trying to discern if someone is breaking in, but the soft pattering doesn’t sound like footsteps at all. It sounds like –like water. Like the tide claiming all the was left of the collapsing home in Cape Cod. Rafe frowns, a hand coming up to his head. Is he hallucinating? Why would there be--  
  
The leak. It occurs to him then: the leak in the kitchen ceiling.   
  
He doesn’t hesitate any longer. Rafe sprints to the door and tears it open, blinking at the brightness of the hall light he left on. The floor shines with water. His toes curl at the sudden moisture, and before his helpless sight, he can see debris in the doorway of the kitchen. Soggy plaster chunks have come down, and above the door, extending into the hall is a deep, torn-open hole that extends into the floor above.   
  
The sound he’d heard –the one that shook him awake? Rafe doesn’t have to investigate much to discover upstairs’ washer, of all things, in pieces on his kitchen floor. Water is still pouring in a thin stream down from the wreckage, flooding his kitchen, extending down the hall. The kitchen is –ruined. The impact has shaken glasses off their shelves, and the water isn’t stopping.   
  
Still dazed, he turns and hurries back up the hall, finding his phone on the nightstand. He doesn’t leave the wreckage for long, afraid that it will somehow worsen in his absence, and watches it helplessly as he dials for building maintenance.   
  
It’s one of the strangest phonecalls of his life, watching his collapsed phone and asking in a level voice if a custodian can come and fix the problem. He’s told it’s the middle of the night, so all they can do for now is cut of the water supply for the upstairs apartment to minimise the damage, but that someone will be there in the morning to fix it.   
  
So Rafe stands there, watching the water flood the hall floor, helpless and unable to stay here. All he can think to do is save what he can. He gathers the important things –the six photographs he actually owns, the canvas of Nadine still hidden in the guest closet, and a few other trinkets and puts them in his own closet, on the top shelf where the water level would never be high enough to reach them.   
  
Before he closes the closest, he takes two pictures for his wallet, just in case. The first is one of the only pictures of his mother he has, a Christmastime shot of her in her kitchen that he’d taken with a polaroid.   
  
The other is the sonogram. It’s dumb –but he slips it in behind the picture of Mother because he’s scared that it’s all he’ll have to remember by Nadine by.   
  
He dresses in the dark, knowing he can’t stay in the apartment. That’s the only thing he knows at that moment, unsure of what to do and still shaken from the dream. It’s an embarrassing default that he thinks immediately to call Nadine. She has a hotel, after all, and he doesn’t feel like sleeping alone if only to avoid witnessing another collapsing home.   
  
The phone rings, and Rafe sits in the dark, his nose still all hot with pain. He waits for her voice.   
  
After a while, she answers with a sleepy, “Rafe?”   
  
“Nadine, I--…” He takes a breath, unsure of what to say. God, he doesn’t want to sound so sensitive. “My kitchen just flooded.”   
  
He hears her tremulous breath on the end of the line and knows she’s still lying in bed. He wants nothing more than to be in the safety of that scene. “Okay.” She says, drawing the word out slightly as if she’s confused. “It’s the middle of the night.”   
  
“I know that.” Sourly, he says it before he realises that he might be a little more successful into getting into her bed if he isn’t so short. “I  --I just –I can’t sleep here.”   
  
“Get a hotel.” And Nadine knows what he’s implying, she’s a smart girl. She just wants to debase him by hearing him ask, directly, for her, doesn’t she?   
  
Rafe hates that she has any kind of power over him. That she has any cards left to play. He almost regrets he never made her bargain for a place in his bed in his damn apartment, but knows it never would have worked. Nadine never makes herself or what she wants too well-known. No, that’s always been Rafe’s weakness.   
  
“I was thinking of joining you.” He says, seriously. “Where--”  
  
“Was this before or after you’d asked me?” She says, her voice hard in tone but soft like nostalgia from having woken recently.   
  
“This is an emergency!”   
  
Nadine almost sounds lighthearted, removed as she is form his crisis when she says, “If it’s such an emergency, I’m sure you can afford a room for the night.”   
  
Rafe doesn’t find any of it remotely funny. More to the point, the last thing he wants is to feel rejected on top of the mess of the situation. Doesn’t she want him? God knows he’d settle for her sympathy in the form of being let into her bed.   
  
“Fine.” He huffs, feeling suddenly ashamed. He swallows quietly and tells her, bitterly, “By all means, you just go back to--”  
  
“Rafe.” She says again, and it always arrests him, despite how much he hates interruptions. She sounds so tender on the end of the line –and his name on her lips is so unbearably intimate that it gives him pause. “I’ll –you can stay with me tonight. But only if we talk about it in the morning.”   
  
She doesn’t need to elaborate on it –they both know. And Rafe’s love is made afraid at the prospect of it, truth be told. He hates that there are conditions governing how he can see her and touch her. Already she’s being taken away, or taking herself away, and he isn’t ready to surrender just yet. His hat is still in the ring and he’s still determined to make her see sense.   
  
It’s incredible that Rafe still finds a way to play to win. It’s incredible that he feels himself nod. “Alright.” He says, slowly. “Alright. What’s –what’s the address?”   
  
Nadine says she’ll rendezvous with him in the hotel foyer. So he goes. He drives himself to take his mind off of things and brings what he thinks he’ll need –his phone, and laptop, and a change of clothes. He doesn’t care about leaving the place, sodden and wet as it is, just so long as he can escape it.   
  
In the car, he thinks it over. Usually, this sort of thing wouldn’t bother him, but the dream he’d been having –the dream of his collapsing home; it’s not the first time he’s dreamt it. He’d been maybe six when those types of dreams had started, and at first they’d been nothing but the paranoia of a child who saw what the Coalinga earthquake did on his television.   
  
They sold the beach house in Cape Cod after the divorce, and his dreams began again, but different. An earthquake never featured in the dream. The house collapsed on itself, turning to dust on the shoulders of a child. He dreamt of it again when a boy down the hall at Deerfield threw himself out of his dormitory window. The sound, at night, and the trembling of the earth found him in Cape Cod again.   
  
He’s always a child, in the dream. And he’s always terrified until the moment he wakes. Then –then Rafe doesn’t think he feel anything. Bereft, probably, that his most stable structures can break so easily.   
  
He pulls up the hotel and hands the car over to the valet, wondering nervously about the stability of his relationship with Nadine. It’s raining when he steps out, and the walk up the steps and into the foyer soaks him.  
  
That’s how he presents himself to her, shivering, drenched, his face still bloody from the fall out of bed. He squeaks across the modest room to find her sitting on one of the couches, wearing loose, cotton pants under a bathrobe. Her face is free of makeup. She looks like home.   
  
Rafe sees her, first, and makes his way towards her. He doesn’t realise how tired he is –and how emotional, to be honest, how terrified the dream and the incident has left him until she looks up.   
  
“Oh, my God.” She says, with only a touch of concern. “You look terrible.” Rafe thinks to laugh, at that, but finds only a safe silence when she stands to greet him, one of her hands coming to inspect his face. “What happened to you?”   
  
He looks away, trying to look unaffected. “I –I fell.” It’s not very convincing. Her touch is appreciated, but he’d rather anything but pity, so he pulls away. “It’s fine. Let’s just head up.”   
  
Nadine lingers, slightly, searching his face for something. God, she’s so beautiful. He wishes he were here under better circumstances, and not on some damn bargain. There never used to be any strings attached to sex, or even to companionship. Maybe it’s his only child syndrome –but Rafe wants all of her, and he wants her all for himself.   
  
She leads. They take the elevator in silence, and Rafe notes how many tiers below the hotels he frequents this place is. Nadine wasn’t kidding when she said she wasn’t the ‘New York’ type. He’s never considered money an issue. But then –he’s never had to.   
  
Her room is small and modest. Her own laptop is open on the bed, and there is paperwork on the nightstand. It’s warm in there, though, and cosy. Rafe can’t think to care about a thing about lying in bed with her. As he puts his bad down by the desk, she takes a look at him again.   
  
“Sit.” She says, pulling another irresistible command before disappearing into the bathroom. He’s half-convinced she’s going to emerge with another razor until he sees her emerge with a wet washcloth. From the bed, he watches her come towards his and put a hand on his chin. “Look up.” And then the cloth is dabbing at the blood on his upper lip.   
  
“Hey--” Rafe hisses, jerking back when she brushes a still-tender part of his nose.   
  
Nadine smiles. “You ought to toughen up.” She says. Rafe frowns up at her, determined to keep his eyes up and not forward, otherwise he’d be staring at her stomach.   
  
“I’m plenty tough enough.” He says, grumpily. “Just be gentle, alright?”   
  
It’s over in a second, and then her hand drops to her side and his face is wet but clean. “Most people say thankyou.” She says, and she’s still sort of smiling. It stills his heart to see it, and suddenly the grip of an earthquake feels far more distant, and the rubble of every collapsing home feels as if it’s been washed off of him.   
  
“Thankyou.” Rafe defers, and before she can walk away he reaches out to take her wrist and pull her towards him. Then she’s closer and he can feel the warmth on her skin. God, he’s still wet from the rain and cold, and his hair has fallen into his face but he still hopes she’ll want him.   
  
“I was going to get you a towel.” She says, quietly.   
  
Rafe’s hand moves up her wrist and strokes the inside of her arm. He tilts his head and breathes out gently. “No need.” He says, and pulls her onto the bed without being forceful. Then her body is next to his and Rafe feels his heart tremble with excitement.   
  
As he goes to kiss her, she flinches, and an arm comes between them to settle on her stomach. Then all of her attentions shift from him in a second, and she smiles, slightly. “I think the baby moved.” She says, looking up at him.   
  
Rafe is looking over her shoulder, and not at her. He feels vaguely sick, but better to when he spots something under the desk.    
  
“Is that a minibar?”   
  
-  
  
Morning comes, somehow. The sun persists in rising as if to spite him.   
  
Cloudy light scatters through the cheap blinds and he wakes, turning onto his back to avoid the sun, and then turning back on his side quickly to avoid the still present pain of the wound on his back. He makes a small noise of discomfort and gets comfortable again by tuning on his other side, and finding Nadine’s form.   
  
She’s still with sleep and warm. Rafe closes the distance between them and nuzzles her hair, ignoring the harsh, intrusive light, having every intention of falling back into his dreamless sleep. He’s sort of hard, he realises, when he shuffles to connect the curve of their bodies, but for once doesn’t feel like instigating any intimacy.   
  
The events of last night –not to mention the damn phonecall, have almost aged him. He thinks he ought to take some codeine and sleep off the rest of the week.   
  
He breathes in the smell of her shampoo and drifts for what feels like ten or so minutes, ignoring the distant sound of traffic and all other distractions. She’s so close like this –in his arms, and Rafe refuses to wake so there never has to be any distance between them. He’s all but forgotten about the terms on which he agreed to be allowed so near to her, and it’s only when he feels her rousing that he remembers.   
  
Rafe falls still himself, then, and closes his eyes. He wills her to be asleep, or at least as tired as she was before Christmas –always weary, ready to rest at any given moment. Alas, no. Nadine isn’t one to stay in bed one she’s awake often, and he feels himself tense as she moves away from him and to the edge of the bed.   
  
She throws the sheets off of her and they fall onto him –which is a happy accident, because it obscures his face but allows him to watch her with one eye open. Nadine doesn’t seem to notice, drawing to the edge of the bed and stretching with her arms above her head. She rises and goes to the dresser, taking out a set of clothes for the day before undressing.   
  
Rafe has seen her undress plenty of times, and he’s seen her naked more than that –but to watch her like this feels voyeuristic and strange. It’s not arousing in the least. Her movements are stiff with sleep, and when she’s down to her underwear, Rafe watches her turn to admire her profile in the mirror, a hand coming down to cup the underside of her stomach while shaking her head.   
  
Isn’t she pleased? Isn’t this everything she ever wanted? Rafe wishes he could just hate her for being pregnant. He wishes he didn’t love her enough to want some great change –be it him feeling differently about her, or her feeling differently about a baby.   
  
She finishes dressing and then moves towards him, perching on the bed and leaning to shake Rafe’s shoulder. He feels her shake him, gently. “Rafe,” She murmurs, gently, “Rafe, wake up.”   
  
Sighing, Rafe pushes the sheets from his face to look at her. He smiles, tiredly. “I’m awake.” He murmurs, and she smiles.   
  
“Good,” she says, moving her hand away. She looks up towards the light coming out of the window and then back down at him, tilting her head. “Come on. Let’s get breakfast.”   
  
Rafe isn’t so tired as to have forgotten about their arrangement. He knows what breakfast is going to entail, and suddenly he’s never been less hungry in his life. For a second, he thinks about pulling her into the sheets and convincing her to stay in bed –but what for? Nadine isn’t so easily waylaid. She’s been wanting to have this conversation for months.   
  
God, Rafe thinks for a second that he might well jump out of the window, but he pulls himself together enough to sit up. Hasn’t he wanted to talk her out of this the moment he knew? Maybe this is his window. Maybe he still can.   
  
He gets dressed while Nadine takes a call of her own, pacing the bedroom while she talks. Rafe isn’t really listening –checking his own messages, finding that his assistant has seen to it that somebody is already fixing his place. It will take a few days at best, she tells him, between furious apologetic messages.   
  
Rafe acknowledges the message. He makes sure to tell her to halt plans on Canada, too. _A bad feeling_ is all he justifies the request with.    
  
Then Nadine is standing by the door, her jacket draped over her arm, looking serious. “Ready?” She asks him, and he stands, nodding. “They have a restaurant downstairs.”   
  
Rafe stares at her back as they move into the hall, sighing. “I can get us a reservation for Dovetail, instead, if you’d like.”   
  
Her shoulders drop, and when she turns to lock the door, he can see how unimpressed she looks. As if the offer is nothing more than an attempt to show her up, which it isn’t. They’ve been before  --one of the first places he’d ever taken her, in fact.   
  
But Nadine seems against the idea. She says, “There’s really no need.” But what she means is ‘we should do this on neutral territory’. The kind of place where Rafe’s money won’t mean anything or afford him any power.   
  
“Fine.” He says, as they take the elevator down. It’s not fine –remotely, and he’s never felt so claustrophobic as he does in that moment. The walls are keeping him in and he’s convinced the power will cut or the elevator will stop and they’ll be trapped, confined to talk without any distraction.   
  
His hand lingers absently over the ‘door open’ button the whole fifteen seconds or so they’re in there. Nadine pays it no mind, at all. The doors open without trouble and she leads them, quietly, into the adjoining restaurant. It’s cheap and sort of tacky, but it’s neutral and mostly empty. Rafe has never been more grateful for stillness as they’re almost immediately seated.   
  
Nadine goes for tea without even looking at the menu –like she can’t wait for the conversation to start. So, for his own sake, Rafe asks for a Manhattan just to spite her, and a piece of toast.   
  
Left to their own devices, Rafe looks out of the window at the rain that’s still persisting, or the interior of the place they’re in. anywhere but her. He wants to prolong the inevitable for just a bit longer.   
  
But he can’t. Nadine demands his every attention with a single word –his name. “Rafe?”   
  
He looks at her, witheringly. “What?”   
  
She notes the tone, and takes a gentle breath in before speaking. “Don’t be like that.” She says it like pulling an order. “You knew this conversation was coming.”   
  
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Rafe can’t help himself –it comes out all by itself. Like he can’t resist upping the ante of any conflict between them. “We could have done this sooner, anyway, if you hadn’t disappeared.”   
  
Nadine laughs –unbelievably. One of her hands moves to the corner of her mouth, amused as if he’s joking. “How long are you going to hold that over me?” She asks him, growing suddenly more serious. “I didn’t do it to spite you.”   
  
Rafe rolls his eyes. “Oh, of course not.”   
  
“For your information.” Nadine looks almost upset, now. “I spent the time deciding that I wanted to have this baby. It just so happens it was easier without you around.” The revelation is spoken in a hard voice, like it hurts her just as much as it reviles him to say. It fills him up with such a sickness to hear –wounds him where he didn’t know it could.   
  
“Thanks for the goddamn heads-up.” He says, suddenly. “If you’ve already made your mind up, what the hell else is there to talk about?” He feels himself wait for her to justify herself but his patience suddenly dissolves, reminded suddenly of Daphne’s words.  
  
Nadine is terse. “Rafe,” She pleads, unnaturally.   
  
“Don’t.” He points a nasty finger at her. “Jesus, did you call me here so we could pick out baby names--”  
  
One of her hands comes up to grab his wrist –and oh, does he remember this feeling. The same sort of grasp as when she’d first told him, at the estate. “Listen to me.” She says, brusquely, her voice suddenly low.   
  
“Why?” Rafe makes no effort at the politeness of discretion. He’s damn-near yelling. “You didn’t listen to me!”   
  
The hand on his twists and he sinks in his seat, pain shooting up his arm. “This is not about you!” Nadine hisses. “Or what you want. This is about our--…”   
  
Their waiter arrives, then, paler, timidly setting their drinks down side-by-side. The white pot of tea looks stumpy and modest next to the elegant stem of the Manhattan, a ray of light falling through it on the table and leaving a poker-sized spot of vermillion on the cloth. At the arrival, they both fall silent, and Nadine frees him, momentarily, withdrawing to give thanks.   
  
A look of hurt comes over her face for a second –more than that. Her eyes look heavy and her lip trembles ever-so-slightly, and Rafe knows he will leave the second she dares to cry. It’s a cheap trick. It’s the worst thing she could do.   
  
Fortunately, Nadine gets it together and pours herself a cup as she lets out a deep breath. Rafe watches her, carefully, scared that at any moment, she’ll turn on him. It’s not concern, he tells himself. He’s just waiting for the right moment.   
  
It arrives: when Nadine looks strong enough to face the question, he asks her. “Is it too late?” The question comes out so timidly –afraid of her, and of everything.   
  
“For what?”   
  
“For an abortion.”   
  
The word, aloud, forces the dead, buried memories of Daphne to spring back to life again. Of how she bled bled bled and how she laid in bed with her arms wound around her stomach in a terrible pain. And Rafe doesn’t say it to be cruel, but he knows the cost and fallout of an abortion. But of a child?  
  
Well, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.   
  
Nadine doesn’t seem to think so. In fact, that terrible threat of emotion appears on her face once more. “I already made my decision.” She says, quietly, her hands tightening on her teacup.   
  
Rafe nearly laughs at her. “Nadine, you can’t be serious.” His expression turns to horror when she doesn’t disagree, and this tangible feeling of fantasy sets in, dread like concrete shoes dragging him to the bottom of the ocean. “Nadine--”  
  
“I said I made my decision.” Nadine looks up at him, and that vulnerability he saw on her before is now behind a look that is harder than steel. He’d feared about her getting emotional last night, when she’d sounded so fond about feeling the baby move. But –to be so defensive? To be attached, already, so something that will only take her away from him?   
  
Rafe wonders if it’s too late. He wonders if there’s a single combination of words that can change her mind –but none appear to him.   
  
“You can’t do this.” He whispers, deliriously, shaking his head. “You can’t just –just force me to--”  
  
“Nobody is forcing you to do anything.” Nadine says. She’s talking like she did on the phone, earlier. Like this is some meeting –and not the divergence of the twain. Not the event that Rafe will remember as having wrenched them apart. “Look--”  
  
He huffs out an angry breath –almost a damn laugh, he can hardly believe what he’s hearing. “No, you look.” Rafe can feel his chest rising sharply –angrier than he could possibly have anticipated. “I don’t know what the hell’s gotten into you, but you are not--”  
  
Nadine’s turn to laugh, incredulous. “This isn’t up to you.”   
  
“So it’s up to you?” He tears his jacket off the back of his chair and rises, fuming. “You are not the only one who gets a fucking say in this!” Then he’s yelling. He expects her to be silent, but Nadine’s limit is reached, suddenly, and then she’s standing, too, squaring him up.   
  
“You’ve had your damn say.” She says, the angriest he’s ever heard her –but somehow calm. Her voice is as sharp and essential as the blade of a knife. But Rafe is too far gone to be afraid of her. To him, she’s already done her worst.   
  
He shakes his head, looking around the room to avoid her eyes for just a second. “When? When did I get to decide a goddamn thing here?!”   
  
Nadine draws in a curt breath. “Sit down.” She orders him, finding herself already so short for patience. He doesn’t think he’s ever hated her more than he does now. He makes no move to sit at all.   
  
“No.” He seethes. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to you talk to me like I’m a fucking child--”  
  
“There’s no other response for your behaviour!” It’s the first time her composure fully breaks, and then she’s yelling even louder than he is drawn up to her full height, her posture radiating hostility. She swallows and a flash of hurt comes over her face again, but only for a second. Then, when next she speaks, she’s softer, even if it’s only by an inch. “Rafe, please--…”   
  
She speaks through her teeth, and if it were any other person and any other word but his name he’d walk. But there he stands, arrested –knowing that no matter where he runs to, nothing in this room will have changed. He has no desire to test the will of the woman. God, already, he knows that whatever happens –whatever he chooses to do, Nadine is going to stand by her decision.   
  
At least if he stays, and listens, then he can be with her for just a little bit longer. He can hate her here, instead of resenting her from halfway across the world, and carrying with him all the things he should have said.   
  
Very slowly, his shoulders drop, and he puts a hand on the chair. He doesn’t move, but the gesture serves as a sort of compliance.   
  
“This isn’t fair.” He says, because he has to. Because he wants her to hear it.   
  
Nadine tilts her head and looks away. “To who?” She asks, emptily, as if there’s another answer. She sighs and then her gazes winds to him again. How can she have the audacity to look beautiful when everything around and between them is so ugly?   
  
At a loss, Rafe closes his eyes for a second and swallows. “Nadine, I can’t--..” He pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling the start of a headache swelling behind his left eye.   
  
She takes the reins, then, granting him some comforting news, at last. “I never said I expected you to raise this child.” She says it like the idea is preposterous.   
  
He feels his temper flare before he can help it. He resents the notion of his inadequacy –takes him right back to Daphne again, and how she knew immediately that she didn’t want any child: not even his, if she ever loved him.   
  
“I never expected you to have it.” He says, bitterly. “God, if this is all you wanted from me, you might have said and saved us both some time.”   
  
Nadine plants herself back in her chair like all this talk is tiring her out. “You know that’s not what this is like.” Is all she can say to her defence, and Rafe can’t resist the asking –always drawn to the blood, never could keep his fingers off a scab.   
  
“Then, by all means, clarify.” He says –more like orders, to be truthfully, sitting down himself. It’s the only time her words have moved away from the awful truth too dizzy to stare in the face, and it’s the only time Rafe feels brave enough to ask, in a roundabout way, if she feels the same.   
  
But Nadine knows better. She’s not going to gratify his childish little heart in the midst of all this. “I understand if you think it’s best to end this.” She says, like their relationship –like everything he’s been ashamed to feel for her, is somehow secondary. “But regardless, I’d at least like us to part as friends on this.”   
  
“Friends?” The word is like a fist to the face, and Rafe swears he’s spitting blood when he speaks. “Is this seriously what you think friends do--”  
  
“You know what I mean.” She hisses.   
  
They’re both in silence before he admits defeat. “I’m not sure I do.” Rafe murmurs, a little terrified. There is so much she could ask of him –so much she could do to destroy what remains of what’s between them. And he’s not sure he’s ready to hear it.   
  
She wets her lips before she speaks. “I’d like –I’d like for you to be listed on the birth certificate.” It’s her first real declarative. And a strange one, at that. Of all the things Rafe expected her to ask for –money, company or whatever else, he never expected something so bureaucratic.  “So, suffice it to say, we’re going to be a part of eachother’s lives.”  
  
In fact, he feels compelled to ask, practically confused. “Why?”   
  
Nadine looks away. Is she embarrassed, really? Of all the things she should feel shame over. Maybe Rafe doesn’t know her as well as he assumes. “Children deserve to know where they come from.” She says, quietly. “And if you ever decide you want to be a part of things--…”   
  
Rafe ignores her last sentence, and thinks about his mother. The question-mark woman of his own childhood that he loved so unconditionally, yet who was so unfamiliar. Her picture is in his wallet, even now, and he has no idea of who or what she was. Knowing where he came from never did him any good, he thinks.   
  
Maybe it was the _deprivation_ that hurt the most. Of having known and lost her –rather than never knowing her. What a mercy it would have been.   
  
“Okay.” He says, exhaling. “If it comes to it.” It’s all starting to set in –to have this weighty, disgusting reality that it’s never had before. Like Rafe never thought to connect the dots, too preoccupied with his own sadness to let it dawn him on. She’s really doing this. She’s really deciding to have a baby. _His_ baby.   
  
It makes his mouth dry up and his heart palpitate unnaturally. For his own nervous sake, he asks, “Do I have to be there –when--”  
  
Nadine shakes her head. “No.” She says, sounding much calmer than he does.   
  
It’s a visible relief, and Rafe hears himself sigh. “Good.” He says, and then leans heavy on the table to reach his drink. God knows he needs it. He wants to –he wants to ask her, but needs more courage than his has in his tired body. That they should be dealing with this; something so heavy and awful, and all Rafe wants to do is ask if she’ll stay.   
  
Instead, they drink in silence. They’re both taking it in, he thinks. He’s still in a disbelief, half-numb from the terrible reality and half-numb from how surreal it all is. Never in a million years did he imagine the inconvenience of her murmuring ‘ _I think I’m pregnant’_ at some estate on some thursday night would ever amount to this.   
  
Eventually, he has to break the silence. There are too many questions clawing at the inside of his skull, demanding an answer. His paranoia flares at the prospect of losing her again –but this time, it’s less of her leaving as being stolen away –purloined by the accident of a child he never meant to sire.  
  
“What happens next?” He asks, for once genuinely at a loss. Because he doubts it’s new York she’ll stay in, too proud to accept his money, too much of a stranger here. And she can hardly expect to continue working, can she? Nadine isn’t exactly a _laissez-faire_ sort of woman –he knows.   
  
The question doesn’t appear to take her by surprise. “For me?” She asks, to clarify, and he nods. “Well, I’m just finishing up a training contract here, and in about two weeks I’m going to fly home.”   
  
Rafe’s heart sinks, a little, but he doesn’t dare show it. “I thought you’d be in more or a hurry. Like last time.” It’s said cruelly. He still wants her to feel how he felt, even if he loves her. Especially because he does.   
  
The comment misses it’s mark, and she looks nonplussed wither way. “I have a scan before I go.” She says, quietly, looking almost fond. God, it’s worse than he thought. “Find out if this one’s a girl or a boy.”   
  
Rafe steps around the sentiment. He has barely accepted the reality of it –entirely unready for that kind of talk. It’s foolish, but before he can help it, he’s saying, in his kindest voice, “I’ll be going to Switzerland then, to ski.”   
  
He tries not to think on all the shameful, now-ridiculous situations he’d imagined around the trip involving them –sharing hot apple cider, making love on the bearskin rugs, racing eachother down the slopes. Nadine knows none of it –and God, he hasn’t even invited her yet. Hasn’t mentioned that he wants her by his side, in bed, at any personal cost –would even have her there pregnant if that’s what it would take.   
  
Swallowing, he says. “You could –you could come, if you’d like.”   
  
It’s not really a request. It’s a need. Nadine didn’t even like the gift he’d given her, couldn’t even pretend to be grateful, and now Rafe is determined to take back control of the situation. Because he imagined her atop the damn cake and that’s where she’ll sit.   
  
To his heartbreak, Nadine almost laughs. “I don’t know how to ski.” She says, lightly. “And I’m not sure I’m in the best condition to learn.”   
  
“We don’t have to ski.” Rafe says, sharply. “There’s plenty to do inside.” He watches her face carefully for codes and clues and tries to forget every thought he’ ever had about her breathing in the cold mountain air, all to himself.   
  
But she is unconvinced. “I start training the new recruits in a few weeks.” She strokes the rim of her empty teacup blandly. “Take somebody else, by all means, though.”   
  
Who else is there? Rafe’s life feels alarmingly empty when he thinks on the suggestion. His string of lovers in the past few years have been casual, brief encounters of greek tragedies to themselves: a goodbye to England, the ballerina who only wanted to dance –and now, Nadine, to that list. Lost to something Rafe had forgotten he could fear.   
  
There’s nothing left at the breakfast table for him. Not even a single scrap of hope for him, and maybe he loves her –but he is sick to death of her in that moment. The air in the room feels artificial and stale, and he feels like a stranger in a town he recognises before her.   
  
Rafe stands abruptly, pulling his arms into his jacket.  
  
“Rafe?” Nadine looks up at him.   
  
He doesn’t look at her. He waves his hand. “I’m –I’m done.”   
  
He gets out his wallet and fishes out a note, pausing to see Mother staring back. He’d forgotten about her picture until now –how happy she looks. And Rafe had taken that picture, so he can attest to the authenticity of it. That even her, absent as she was, could look at her son with such adoration in her eyes. Like she really loved him, even if Rafe can hardly remember the way her voice had sounded when she said it.   
  
A slightly trembling fingertip touches the transparent plastic over her smile. God, he wishes she was here, to be near him, to give him guidance on what to do about all of this. He’d wished the same sort of thing as a child.   
  
Rafe’s fingers hesitate in the open wallet as he looks at the picture, before placing the money on the table. “For breakfast.” He says, weakly, doing up his jacket.   
  
He takes two steps away from her, but hesitates, and draws back.   
  
“If –if  it’s a girl,” He says, in a pinched voice. “Call her Carrie, would you?”   
  
And, at that, he departs.


	12. strange mercy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all are so nice. too nice. most of this was brandy-induced. 
> 
> honestly? i'm #teamnadine

It rains all day. No matter where he goes, it seems, flooding is inevitable.   
  
He ends up –Jesus, he end up at the Greenwich, eventually. His apartment is still being repaired, and he isn’t ready to face Nadine again, so what can do he do? He makes a reservation for a few days and becomes a guest in the city he considers home.   
  
It’s been years since he’s stayed here. The last time was probably when he was having his place redecorated by Daphne. He’d taken her actually, as a sort of romantic gesture. He resented the suite with the fireplace and everything –not that they made much use of it in the end. No, instead, he’s laid her down on the enormous bed and fucked her from standing, a hand squeezing her throat so that he could cum to the sound of her gasping.   
  
The memory is actually a pleasant one, and it sort of makes him miss her. Not that he has any illusions about her: frigid and jealous and cold as she had been –as they’d both been. But, even if it was just that one evening, they were happy.   
  
To return to the place at such a loss makes him feel like he’s lost ground on the man he used to be. Like he only goes backwards.   
  
He settles for a standard room, exhausted somehow, despite the fact that it can’t be more than midday. The room is almost entirely silent for the sound of the rain against the window, and he listens to it with about half of his attention when he retires to the bed, lying on his left, drowning against the pillow.   
  
Nadine is still a dizzy picture in his mind. Too dizzy to stare into the face. Is he really trying to cling to the belief that she wants anything to do with him? Not even for all of the money in the world, she doesn’t, and he can’t help but feel sort of used.   
  
And he could have pretended, couldn’t he? Rafe tries to imagine twisting his mouth to get out words that Nadine would want to hear. He pictures the agony inside as he bends his face into a facsimile of excitement, or maybe even joy. It seems –god, it seems impossible: the lie too great and ridiculous. Rafe doesn’t know if he could ever convince himself to be a part of Nadine’s future now.   
  
And yet, he knows he must give a worthy performance in order to win her.   
  
He tries to ease himself into the notion. Lying there, he looks at the wall ahead and wonders how things would change if he felt the same way as Nadine. If his decisions matched hers. He imagines the hallmark moments that he knows and tries to insert the himself into the picture –his hand on her growing stomach to feel stirrings of life, or his hand in hers through the worst of the labour, and then eventually a tiny hand wrapped around his finger.   
  
Only, Rafe knows it wouldn’t be like that at all. Even if he wanted it, his constitution for these kinds of things is only so strong. He’s never understood the company men who stand around the water cooler and talk fondly about seeing their wives bodies broken. He’s never understood the supposed magic around newborn children. They are all identical to him: soft, shaped bodies that are overexposed and underdeveloped. Rafe is never going to be the man in the scene.   
  
And, for her part, neither is Nadine. Rafe can still love her for that, with all he has left. He can love her for the fact that she would be so out of place in any one of those scenes. Hell, she’s out of place in her own skin being pregnant. It’s literally impossible to imagine her at the end of it. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to.    
  
Well, Rafe thinks contemptuously, she made her choice. Maybe it’s not so impossible.   
  
His brain aches mercilessly to think about it. He orders bourbon up to his room because the stocked bar is disappointing, and he sits and drinks in silence. It’s been too sobering a day to get that click in his head so soon, but his thoughts loosen up after a little while. It makes the thinking easier. So far he’s having enough trouble imagining a few months into the future.   
  
Because –well, then what? Rafe takes another drink and forces himself to imagine the consequence of this all. It’s somehow easier when he gives the idea Mother’s name. Then it isn’t so bad, he thinks. The only love Rafe thinks he’s ever had to give is in most parts to Nadine and leftover from Mother. To imagine having a daughter that reflects them both eases him, somehow. It makes his heart a little less tight in his chest.   
  
The first few years of life are too abstract for him to envisage. Even more abstract to imagine with Nadine. Her life barely has room for Rafe at times. Maybe he doesn’t know much about Shoreline, but he knows that conflict in her work is set in stone. God, it amazes him that she’s even going to try to carve space for a child. Maybe it’s because it’s worth more to her than Rafe –even just the possibility of it.   
  
Rafe has to drink again to recover from the thought. He already knows she’s going to have the baby whatever he says, or whatever happens, if for no other reason that she wants to. And that’s what Rafe admires about her most –hell, it’s what drew him to her in the first place. Her resolve. Her impossible will.   
  
It’s ironic that the very qualities he loves her for are the ones that keep them at an arm’s length, isn’t it? That’s the way, he supposes. Her unstoppable nature isn’t made to make room for his immovable disposition. Her wishes hiss at his sins.   
  
Fuck it, he thinks. He guesses he better get used to the prospect –maybe even make the best of it. Never in her life has Nadine been vulnerable. Never in their history has she needed him, and even if he wishes it were under better circumstances, he is utterly seduced at the prospect. Best case scenario, he thinks, then she would stay in New York, and she would have a daughter and call her Carrie and---  
  
Remorselessly, Rafe laughs. What the hell is he saying? Best case scenario, she miscarries, and he has to console her for a little while until she gets over it and realises that what she really wants is him. Worst case scenario: she leaves in two weeks. Less than two, even, and never comes back.   
  
Most likely scenario? He isn’t sure. And, God, he isn’t used to being this uncertain for this long. So he continues the oldest practise of tempering his uncertainty –he drinks.   
  
He drinks until his eyes hurt and he’s long past that click, drowsing on the hotel bed all bleary and sad. The silence is unbearable so he turns on the television and finds nothing at all, drunk enough to see his Mother in every woman facing away or walking away or dead. Rafe starts to feel alone, then. Faced with the prospects of it all, he thinks he’s suddenly so lonesome he could die –that he’s rather dissolve than have her leave but she could be leaving this second.   
  
What else is there to do? He can’t call her like this –too afraid of her seeing under his skin like this. Desperate doesn’t look good on him. The virtue of leaving her alone would look better, he thinks. God, he’s still tingling from the kill anyway, and he doesn’t want Nadine to ever see him like this –sobbing down the line to her about Mother, about how he loves her and all else worthless and shameful that he harbours.   
  
Rafe draws himself off the bed and rights himself in the bathroom mirror –sorting his hair but unable to fix his swimming eyes and flushed cheeks. Unable to fix the advance of age. He looks just like his Father, and it’s so unbearable that he has to look away immediately, leaving the lights on and taking the elevator down to the hotel bar. There are others like him there; there always are.   
  
Still bleary, he orders the first thing he recognises on the menu and surveys the others around. There must be thirty people in his immediate vicinity and he still feels like he’s about to disappear. There are women surrounding him and he thinks that everyone is Nadine and their perfumes obscene, and he looks around for any one that would take his fancy.   
  
There’s a woman in red, actually, with dark skin –darker than Nadine’s, but her hair is similar enough from behind that he feels drawn to her. He doesn’t really waste time. Why should he? He gets her attention, and the second she turns and looks different to Nadine, his interest nosedives.   
  
It picks back up when they’re pressed against eachother on the bed and she’s in nothing but her panties. Rafe is above her, trying to avoid being kissed, if he’s honest, biting her whenever he gets to the opportunity, before withdrawing to undress himself. Her body is different to Nadine’s in so many ways –a third younger, with no muscle mass to speak of and ageless skin where familiar scars should be.   
  
He settles himself between her legs as he throws his shirt over his head, and then leans up again –halted, though, suddenly.   
  
“Jesus!” The girl says –much the worse for talking, long island brash in her voice. “What happened to you?”   
  
Rafe is slow on the uptake to realise she’s talking about the gaudy red lines on his stomach. Blue stitches are still pulling him together. She has every right to be frightened –in the darkness, against his skin, they look so sudden and vicious. It never occurred to him to be conscious of them before. Not even when Nadine had been probing them gently, nought but a morbid sort of fascination in her eyes.   
  
The girl seems set on mimicking her, reaching out a hand of her own as if to touch. Rafe takes her wrist before she can, maybe a touch harder than he intended. She puts up very little fight when he pins it above her head and rolls her over.   
  
He doesn’t say anything about it –just uses his other hand to tug her underwear down and feel over her. She’s gorgeously warm, and wet. Facing away, she looks like Nadine and he imagines plunging his fingers into her instead as she is pinned, so that there’s no struggle or escape. God, the very idea of her submitting like this, so willingly. His head is swimming by the time he pulls his fingers out of her and enters her.   
  
Fucking her like this, he grips hard on the back of her neck and it takes his all not to let Nadine’s name escape his mouth. She makes noises, now and then, that sound unfamiliar and break his fantasy, but after long enough they settle into a kind of silence and he can feel himself drawing closer and closer, scratching at her hipbone.   
  
That lonely, dissolving feeling is replaced momentarily by the distraction of filling her up, and he feels so much the better when he comes, shuddering, thinking of Nadine and the way her toes curl when she climaxes.   
  
But then it’s over and the woman turns to lie on the bed and she looks so alien that Rafe feels even worse for having let her into his bed. For having her make a fool out of him like this –and the way his ailing heart is. He pulls out of her and itches his crawling skin, saying nothing, but looking towards the door to facilitate her leaving.  To be honest, he can’t stand to look at her, absent, not even feeling present with loneliness but barren.  
  
She leaves –and he finishes off the bottle of bourbon on the nightstand in place of saying anything. The sex has sobered him up a little, and the moment he achieves any sort of clarity is the moment he is filled with heavy regret, like a bowling ball at the bottom of the ocean. Alone, again, he thinks he could disappear. He thinks he could die right now and nobody would very much care.   
  
Stupidly, he opens his wallet to Mother’s picture. He never did go to her funeral; too destroyed, as he was, by her death. Rafe never really thought that she’d –God, now he’s crying, because he never once thought she’d just die like that. Anonymous, dead and moneyless in the middle of term. Mother had promised him. Now, when he thinks he probably needs her most he doesn’t even have his memories.   
  
Suddenly angry, he takes the picture out and thinks about tearing it to pieces. How could she leave him? How could she let him sleep, thinking she’d live? Believing –stupidly believing. She made a fool out of him. She --…  
  
Rafe’s grip tightens, his thumb brushing past her face, before he goes limp against the sheets, swallowing. He’s still sort of crying, but it’s incidental: silent, shameful lines cutting down his face and nothing more. He wishes he could pull himself together, but there’s so much bourbon in him that he feels taken by the tide. Overwhelmed by it all.   
  
He lays the picture to rest on the bed, then. What would be achieved in tearing the picture up? He should sooner tear out his goddamn eyes for all that they long to see her, or his ears for all the guidance he’s seeking to hear. Trembling, he goes to put the picture back, but pauses, finding himself faced with the other picture. The sonogram, and the very last fucking thing he want to think about.   
  
His mouth makes the word ‘Carrie’, and he thinks about Mother holding his hands in the living room, drunk on seasonal sherry, trying to get him to dance to ‘Baby Driver’ as her ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ record span and span. It isn’t the first time he has thought about that memory.   
  
But it’s the first time he imagines it from Mother’s eyes.   
  
Rafe rubs his eyes. He takes a hard look at the sonogram, obscure as it is in the dark and thinks he could lie. To Nadine. He could tell her whatever would help her sleep next to him if it would keep her there. Just like Mother did –not a lie, but a mercy. A strange, sweet mercy.   
  
Overwrought, suddenly, his hand reaches out in the dark for his mobile. He wants to call her. He wants to call her and tell her.   
  
But he falls asleep before he can.   
  
-  
  
Rafe wakes to his ringtone.   
  
Groggy as all hell, he feels it vibrate against his lax palm and claws it towards him. He lifts himself off of the bed, slightly, seeing dried blood stuck where his face had been. He laments the pain in his skull, and his nose, and his stomach –everywhere, really. It’s bright outside, white light spilling onto the bed and overwhelming his senses so much that he practically forgets the call.   
  
Bringing it to his face, he sees it’s one of his men in Toronto. It’s also barely past eight. Admist all of this mess with Nadine, he’d almost forgotten that he has a company to affiliate with.   
  
It rings out before he can think to answer it. Instead, he draws himself off the bed and staggers towards the bathroom to piss. He isn’t sick, even if he feels it, and even if he thinks clearing out his stomach would make him feel a lot better. In the bathroom mirror he avoids his own reflection and staggers back to bed, where his phone is still going. He coughs twice and presses reject.   
  
There are about sixteen unread texts concerning the expansion, and apparently _‘a bad feeling’_ isn’t justification enough for halting international business. None from Nadine, which seems to steal his attentions absolutely. The thought of her warms the stillness in his chest. Should he call her? Don’t they both have more to say? Rafe knows he does, anyway. There are a million questions he was too angry to ask before.   
  
Now, with the quiet, if-not-bitter resignation of it all, he feels a bit more level-headed.   
  
He goes to message her before anyone else, but draws a blank. There’s no guarantee that Nadine even wants to talk. After all, Rafe wasn’t exactly begging to be a part of her life. No, she looked ready to reach over the table and break his arm the last time they spoke. Maybe he deserves it, but they only have a little time left. He wants to –to hold onto it, if he can.   
  
Hungover to all hell, he gets around to work eventually.   
  
He tells her _‘can we talk soon?’_.   
  
It takes many hours to write those four words.   
  
-  
  
He finds out though secretive means where Nadine will be three days after he texts her, with no response.   
  
So she’s angry, he notes, hollowly. Or hurt. Either way, it’s clear she has no intention of seeing him. And were it not for the deadline looming over his head before her permanent departure, he could respect that.   
  
But they’re running out of road, and with all that Rafe feels for her, he’s running out of patience.   
  
She’s taking a private class downtown for something like aikido or muay thai or the like, and by the time Rafe arrives it’s late. He has never taken  public class before, or used the facilities, so he’s surprised the place is still even operational given that it’s nearly half ten at night. It’s still raining, too.   
  
It’s anonymous enough from the outside but a sign above the door classifies it. There’s no receptionist to hand, but the lights are on, so he follows the sounds of movement from the corridors, down the clean halls. He passes room after empty room before coming upon a doorway spilling sound –a conversation, in fact.   
  
Hers is the first voice he hears, if a little breathless. “If I’m ever in the city again,” She says, taking a moment. “I’ll be sure to come by.” There’s a little warmth in her voice that Rafe hasn’t heard his way in a long time. He hears another voice laugh.   
  
“I look forward to it.” It’s a woman. Older than Nadine, by the sounds of it. It’s the tail end of their talk, and then he hears gentle footsteps. Rafe straightens in the door, preparing to face her, crestfallen only slightly at the sight of a dark, older woman who very much isn’t Nadine.   
  
She’s a whole head shorter than Rafe, and looks baffled by his presence. “We’re closed.” She says, sharply. It’s sort of affronting.   
  
“I’m not--” The day has been long and Rafe is tired. He has put out too many fires today. “I’m here to see Nadine.” He prays that things will be simple for him.   
  
The woman gives him a steely look, and says, “I’m locking up in ten minutes.”   
  
And that’s it. The whole interaction. Rafe is left bereft in the white hallway, suddenly questioning his nerve to face her. Briefly, he thinks about leaving things as they are, but there’s too much up in the air for that. And if nothing else, his indignation keeps him there. That even now, she’s fine with radio silence.   
  
Hasn’t she punished him enough? Was it something he said?   
  
Bolstered, Rafe steps inside, the white walls of the place making it look clean and airy, and the plastic mats of the floor muting the echoes of sound. Nadine is in a white robe, turned away from him, and he suddenly feels like an interloper. The words he had planned to say become untranslatable and foreign to him, so he doesn’t say anything.   
  
No –Nadine does. She beats him to the punch without even looking at him. “What do you want?”   
  
Rafe swallows. He loses all off his courage in a single second. “I –I wanted to talk to you.”   
  
She stretches an arm across her body and he can see the inside of one of her wrists. He aches to be touching her. “I’m busy.” Is all that she says. “You should leave.” She says.   
  
Rafe cants his head slightly and swallows. He feels that the woman from last night is all over his skin, and it occurs to him to feel guilty that Nadine should sleep alone.   
  
But what he says is, “You should leave with me.”   
  
It misses it’s mark. Nadine turns and looks at him so witheringly. There’s hurt in her features, too, he thinks. A vulnerability that he recognises. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t think to be afraid, the avalanche in his chest rising at the sight of her vulnerability, strong enough to ignore the hate in her eyes. There’s colour high in her cheeks from exertion. When his eyes are above shoulder-level, she’s unbearably beautiful.   
  
Even so, somehow, when she says, “Get out.” Her attentions shift from him to her coat, and he watches her, sizing up the situation.   
  
“Shouldn’t we talk?” Rafe is half-asking genuinely. He hasn’t a clue why she’s being so damn dismissive. Coming here and actively seeking her out to offer the damn olive branch should be enough. She should be pleased, shouldn’t she?   
  
“No.” Nadine huffs, turning on him. She fixes the front of her robe, tied above her stomach, before looking back up at him with strained eyes. “Shouldn’t you be leaving?”   
  
She’s cutting right to the chase. So he tries to do the same. “You’re going to be gone soon.” He says, folding his arms across his chest. “I thought we could at least--”  
  
“Save it.” She holds up a hand. Her whole body looks sort of tight with tension. “You know how to get in touch if you have anything else you want to say.” Then Nadine looks at him again, and her eyes are bright again with hurt. “But I think I’ve had quite enough of talking to you.”   
  
She goes to put her goat on, so Rafe does the only thing he can think of. He snatches it right out of her hands and raises his voice. “What the hell are you talking about?”   
  
Nadine swallows, and holds out her arm like she expects him to give up that easily. “You made yourself perfectly clear the last time we spoke.” She says, venomously. “I don’t think there’s anything left to say.”   
  
One of her hands snaps for the coat then, and he realises he’s not the only one tried for patience. He takes a step backwards to keep his leverage. The fabric is thick and soft. It probably smells like her.   
  
“What –so that’s it?” Rafe asks her. He’s never been begging to be proven wrong so much in his whole life. But Nadine isn’t there to please him.   
  
“Rafe!” She snaps, her hand going for the coat again.   
  
“Rafe, indeed.” He echoes her, his voice suddenly growing all small with hurt. His throat constricts to the size of a pinhole suddenly, as he urges the sentence out. “You mean –you were going to leave, just like that?”   
  
Admonished, Nadine looks at her feet for a second, an then coughs out another angry breath. Her gaze wanders back up to him and she looks so disdainful that he hardly recognises her. Jesus, are they already dead in the water?   
  
“What else is there to say?” She says, her eyes on the wall behind him. Her voice is harder than it needs to be, and he hears it like the rattle of gunfire. “Give me my coat.”   
  
Rafe doesn’t make a damn move. If anything, he holds tighter to it, and lets a breath out of his nose. He feels himself tense as she sighs again, shaking her head, going to move past him and to the door. In a panic, he steps to fill the space. To keep her captive. “You’re not going to leave.” He says, in a pinched voice.   
  
Nadine’s brow quirks like he’s being ridiculous. “Get out of my way.”   
  
She’s trying to move past him in the door, and he feels so terribly at a loss that he grabs her by the tops of her arms because he’s unable to lose her again, and he holds tight for dear life. “Nadine, for god’s sakes, I love you.” He tries to sound calmer about it this time, and lets the words be heard, filling the hall and standing alone as if they’ll fix or change anything.   
  
They don’t. Nadine looks violently uncomfortable. “So what?” She says, shaking her head indifferent. It’s to meaningless to her –that the full depth of his affections are worthless to such an extent that they are trivial and annoying. Rafe can hardly bear it. He holds her there, in the arch of the door, his hands squeezing into her arms with critical force.   
  
“So what? So plenty!” Rafe swallows. His nose prickles and he realises then that he’s already yelling. “And you’re not going anywhere until this is settled.”   
  
Like sudden lightning, she clamps down on one of his hands and pulls him through until he’s bent in half, at the mercy of her force on his arm, twisted behind his back, leaving him pinned. Frighteningly forceful, she uses the lock to drag him out of the doorway until Rafe puts his foot over hers and tugs her free arm, endangering her of falling forward.   
  
Nadine goes down onto her hands for a second, but is up faster than a cut snake. She seems to size him up again, waiting for him to dare to make another move. She doesn’t go to leave. It doesn’t look like she’s going to until she’s dealt with him, and he briefly regrets standing between her and the door.   
  
It’s not like it’s Rafe’s first fight, but it’s been less than two weeks since he nearly bled out on the sidewalk, and he’d like very much to keep his stitches intact. He can blame his apprehensions on something else though.   
  
“Nadine,” He sighs, nursing his arm. “Do you really want to make this uglier than it needs to be?”  
  
She straightens in a sudden horror, as if she’s hurt. “Me?” She hisses at him, and she’s actually yelling. It takes a lot to make her yell, and he realises that she must be really hurt, much to his own bewilderment. “Do you even hear the way you speak to me?!” With a single step, she is closer, and Rafe honestly believes she’ll break his arm if he isn’t careful. “You couldn’t even make it one single conversation without--”  
  
“Is it any wonder?!” He interjects, just as loud as her, but taking a step back. “Did you hear what _you_ were saying to _me_?!”   
  
Nadine faces him with the same sort of grimness of a child staring at a vaccination needle. “Yes, I heard it!” She yells out, in an angry cough. Then, softer, her voice teetering close to tears. The closest he’s ever heard her. “ _I_ was the one who had to say it.”   
  
The sudden weakness –not weakness, but vulnerability tightens his chest. He hates that she has such power over him. That she doesn’t flinch or care to look to like at any declaration of love, but just the suggestion of sadness in her is enough to make him regret ever speaking. Ever raising his voice to her.   
  
But he isn’t just going to let it lie like that. “This isn’t--” His voice weakens to a thick murmur, and he fights himself for a little honesty. “I never really thought that you’d--…” He looks at her and begs for mercy. “You scared me.”   
  
Mercy doesn’t come –or of it does, it’s in the form of her striking him hard in the jaw. Rafe staggers back in new pain as Nadine advances on him, her voice rigid again.   
  
“You’re _not_ the one who gets to be scared here.” She seethes, and then her lip trembles again like she’s going to break. A hand comes up to her brow as she turns, hissing out frantically. “D’you have any idea what this is like for me?!”  
  
Rafe’s ears are still ringing from her punch, and he swears he tastes plasma on his teeth when he speaks. “You said you _wanted_ this--”  
  
“That doesn’t mean I’m not--!...” The shout dies in her throat and she trails off, her eyes closing, her face taught with tension like she’s holding the rest of the sentence back. Swallowing, she heaves a breath in and out before opening her eyes again. They’re shining like diamonds on the ocean floor. “You can walk away at any time.” She tells him. Orders him.   
  
Rafe watches her cross the floor and holds his face. He wishes there was something to say –something new, that would convince her they’re both on the same side of the gun. But what if they’re not? What if..?   
  
“Nadine.” He says, his voice breaking ever-so-slightly. “I don’t want to walk away.”   
  
He watches her back straighten in the midst of putting on her shoes like she has a remark for that. God, at this point, Rafe knows what she’ll say. He can’t have it all for himself. And if he doesn’t want to walk away, he better start wanting a child.   
  
No, instead, she says, “I don’t care what you want.” Like she can’t muster fury. Like she’s burnt out already.   
  
His mind turns to Carrie. To Mother. Every version of her that has ever existed is already dead. “What if I wanted this--”  
  
Nadine whirls, not angrily, but tiredly. Her face has paled and she looks like she’s practically weak. “Oh, who’re you trying to _fool_?” She leans heavy on the wall and sounds airy with breathlessness. He recognises the timbre of it, he realises, from her incident at Clover Cub. Right now, she looks about ready to faint.   
  
But Nadine is proud, and despite how weak she sounds, she tells him. “Go home.”   
  
The avalanche is heavy in Rafe’s chest. The hurt hasn’t settled in yet. With her before him, he still somehow believes he can salvage this. “Nadine,” He tries her name again, and takes a few steps forward, reaching out a nervous hand to steady her, even though she fights him.   
  
“Let go of me.” She bites, flush against the wall, twisting her body away from him. It’s not enough to stop him curling an arm around her, and he finds her body unseasonably feverish. He watches her form a fist, but it falls lax and instead she shoves at him feebly. “I said let –let go, Rafe--…”   
  
Heeding her protests, he tries to set her down slowly and gently into sitting. It’s not a gesture of nobility. Rafe just wants to be near her, like this. He can smell her skin and feel her body and feels a hideous tight fear in his gut that it might be the last time. He’s no good at last times. Never has been. Nadine is resilient, shoving him away hard, falling back against the wall.   
  
They’ve only just parted when he realises that the old woman from before is standing in the door. She surveys the scene for about a second, of the two of them about a foot apart, breathless. Nadine still looks sickly. Rafe swallows, and thinks that he should go, but is anchored there, unable to leave without her. Not unless he is made to.   
  
But he isn’t given a choice.   
  
The old woman takes a few steps towards Nadine, and tells Rafe over her shoulder, “Get out of my dojo.” He takes a few steps back, giving them room, but making no real room to leave. This is bigger than some stranger and her classroom. Not that the woman notices. She comes in front of Nadine and speaks quietly. “Are you alright?”   
  
Nadine nods diffidently and steadies herself. “I’m fine.” She says, quietly. “Just a little tired.” Her eyes travel from the woman in front of her over the shoulder to Rafe, and she sounds very steely when she says, “I’ll be on my way.”   
  
“Are you sure?”   
  
Nadine only nods. It’s a very small movement, but it’s there, and she’s given the space to stand. Rafe realises then that he’s still holding her coat, and it tightens in his hands to realise it. Nadine is going to leave, now, he knows. And then not long after that she’s going to leave the city, and god knows if Rafe will ever get word from her. If he’ll have a daughter out there, or a son to grant his late laurels and a Laius complex. He wonders, for a second, if she’s done seeing home, until she turns and holds out her hand for the coat.   
  
He doesn’t want to let it go. He doesn’t want to let her go.   
  
Yet, he has to.


	13. hysterical strength

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im already sorry for how poor this is. 
> 
> (also! some trivia for the masses which i never published: rafe's dad isn't distant 'just because'. years before rafe was born, his mother had a stillborn daughter. it had bought his parents really close together, and rafe's dad loved her more than he ever loved anything else before. or since. )

At the top of the tallest black piste, Rafe hesitates.  
  
He tells himself it’s because of the slope. Because the old scar on his knee hurts suddenly and a bad fall will tear open his stitches and he’s out-of-practise. That’s why he feels so suddenly nervous –not because, in the face of Nadine’s rejection, Rafe was happy to put 4000 miles between them. Not because March is here and brings with it a twenty-year anniversary that he can’t handle alone in the city.  
  
The slopes are as far from El Paso and Cape Cod as possible. Far from New York and the mad crowd there, too. It’s his last run of the day anyway, so the slopes are pretty empty, and he’s kind of glad to be alone. Rafe can’t really handle being inside with the company men and their wives. Least of all the unlucky few that have brought their children.  
  
So he skis instead, despite the crust on the corn snow, carving down the slope and thinking of nothing but the whistle of wind in his ear and the force of it against him. He finds his peace on the fall line, and it could be minutes or hours he descends, carving with the turn of the slope and easing himself into the gradient until he’s gliding, weightless and dangling.  
  
Rafe is sort of amazed he doesn’t fall. It’s been over a year, after a while, and he feels much wearier much more quickly. He feels barely a vapour in the heavy, baggy gear, and yet heavier than ever with everything weighing on his shoulders. When he reaches the bottom of the slope, when darkness is already descending, he looks back up at the mountain in amazement.  
  
It’s just him, then, in the gloaming, staring up at the carved white tracks of the slope where a thousand people have gone down. In the shadow of the great thing, he makes his way towards the ski lift and watches his breath scatter on the wind. He tracks herringbone towards it, and takes off his ski goggles, squinting at the snow which now looks almost lilac under the sky.  
  
As he’s reaching the lift, he feels the sudden, heavy sensation of being watched, and turns, cumbersomely. To his fright, thereabouts, he sees a mountain hare in the snow behind him.  
  
The animal surprises him in size, but also in boldness, staring up at him with wild eyes. And Rafe isn’t sure what to do, to be honest, staring down at it with tired eyes. If he moves, he knows, the thing will most likely scamper away in fright. But he can’t just stand there and stare at it forever. The cold is setting into his bones at an alarming rate –seeping in with all the weight he lost on morphine.  
  
He lifts a hand, reaching down to the old injury on his knee, expecting the slight movement to scare the thing off, but it doesn’t. Rafe’s body aches, and he’d like nothing more than to set down by a fireplace and drink brandy until his brain clicks, but feels sort of nailed to the spot by the gaze of the thing.  
  
Swallowing, he blinks at the hare, and it blinks back. He’s never been much for animals, to be honest. He’s barely much for people, and wasn’t ever any good with Captain or any other horse in El Paso, but even to his scepticism, it’s objectively cute. It has dark eyes and his mind makes a play at conjuring Nadine, but he quells the thought quickly.  
  
With a hesitant hand, he reaches out, and the moment he does, the thing turns tail, and he watches it track back through the snow at a shocking speed.  
  
“Wait,” He feels his lips make the word, but doesn’t say it, and then the hare is gone from his vision, hidden by the dense tree line beyond the berm. The moment only lasts for five minutes or so, if that. And then Rafe is alone again.  
  
So why does he feel bereft? Why does he think about it the whole way up the mountain?  
  
-  
  
Inside, he hides from the rest of the company men who take this as an annual vacation.  
  
He’s out of his skin gear, resting in an enormous leather armchair, dressed in grey, from sweatpants to cotton. The cold is still in his bones, and the fire only seems to artificially warm him. His knee isn’t quite right, still, either, but he’s relieved to find his stitches still healing without complaint. He’s sort of playing with the lowest set when he sees his phone light up on the coffee table in front of him.  
  
Her name comes up, not her contact picture, but both are just as intimate as the other. Which is to say: not much at all. Out of courtesy, he’d texted her yesterday morning to say he would be in Switzerland by midday –and maybe also a little hope, too, that she’d ask to join him.  
  
No, when last they spoke, she wanted anything but to be near him, so he’s not exactly optimistic.  
  
It turns out to be the wisest approach. All she has left are the words ‘will be in Joburg by Sunday eve’. That’s fine, he guesses. Makes for no goodbyes –but that’s good, isn’t it? He’s never been very good at them anyway, and she made herself clear in leaving some distance between them.  
  
Isn’t she lonely? He can’t imagine she has a multitude of friends in the city, and he knows that she’ll be refusing herself the refuge of a drink. Rafe doesn’t know how she can stand it –the loneliness. Or does she fill the void? He feels nauseous at the notion of another man in the place he’d slept, a stranger’s arm hooked over her body, asleep or dead. Even at the mere suggestion of it, he feels a hot, righteous anger flare in him, dissolving only to a pity.  
  
That’s not her. Nadine doesn’t look for people like that, and even if she did –she’s visibly pregnant. Her options are narrow to none, and then the image of her, sitting in that dismal little hotel, alone, and scared, as she’d told him, overwhelms him with guilt.  
  
Did he do right by her –leaving her, as she’d asked? Or is he justifying the abandonment? Leaving her to dry because her reality is too heavy for him to shoulder?  
  
Rafe doesn’t even want to think of it, but he can’t leave it alone, either. He fears that she’ll go, and never come back. That the next time they meet will be years from now, and he will be older, and she will have a daughter, and neither of them will recognize the other. If it comes to that, he should –god, he should make up a goodbye, at least. Or pretend to have one.  
  
Leaning over, he unlocks his phone and stares at her message –at prior conversations that linger above, and his fingers twitch, typing out the words that she has never cared to hear. Wanting to tell her that he does love her –because of and in spite of all of this, even if she’d rather hear something else.  
  
But he loses the nerve, as he always does, and ends up sending ‘will be back in nyc on thurs’.  
  
-  
  
Rafe wakes the next day feeling sick.  
  
And after two green slopes, his hands are shaking and his guts have tied themselves into knots. It’s only midday, and the conditions are perfect, but he thinks he’s had enough for the day. The cold is already in his bones. It never used to worm it’s way under his skin like this, but he shivers in-line at the ski lift nonetheless.  
  
Beyond the way, he can see some bunny slopes in the distance, and he watches the first-time skiiers shuffle down the short slopes. He watches as a child of no more than six approaches the bottom with a little speed, and for some inexplicable reason, he thinks of Daphne again.  
  
Isn’t that how old their child would be, had things been different? Rafe finds himself glued to the sight. He watches the child climb onto the other ski lift with a parent, and tries to imagine himself there, but blanks. None of the parents that he has ever seen mirror his own –or even himself. What happens to the people like him –the ones who never wanted this, or asked for it? He stares hard at the child on the lift and wishes he could see some glimpse of life after. Is there some kind of transfiguration? Does he become like the man in the scene suddenly, when he needs to be? Or were they never like him to begin with?  
  
Suddenly, the world feels off it’s axis, and he doesn’t think to inhabit his own body until he hears a voice behind him.  
  
“The lift’s free.” A man says, and Rafe turns to realise that he’s holding up the queue. The lift is indeed free, and he’s just standing there, with people behind him staring out at the beginners with a look that could be mistaken for scorn. At his inertia, the Midwesterner behind him sort of nudges forward and says, “D’you mind if I take a ride up with you? I’m sort of in a hurry.”  
  
Rafe doesn’t really share well –he never really learned to, but nods to be genial. They’ll both get inside before the cold cracks his bones, so he climbs on after the stranger, drawing his arms in. As they begin to descend, he looks back at the bunny slope to try and find the child he was looking at, but it is already lost, surrendered to the vague, small shapes of people. No evidence of life after. Forlorn, Rafe takes his goggles and his hat, scratching his hair and staring forward.  
  
The stranger next to him nudges him, then, excitedly, and Rafe doesn’t even get to second to detest it before he’s told, “Oh, Lord –Rafe, I didn’t even recognise you!”  
  
Rafe’s mouth opens slightly and he surveys the man next to him, who is looking at him behind ski gear expectantly, like Rafe can even remember to think half of the goddamn time. Let alone recognise somebody who’s likely inconsequential to him. It’s rude, he knows, but the stranger seems forgiving enough, pulling his goggles up to reveal grey eyes that do ring as familiar, even distantly.  
  
“Rich –you know, R&D in Chicago.” Smiling, the man extends a hand and it takes Rafe a second to realise he should be shaking it. Of course, then the faint tinge of familiarity grows and Rafe remembers that three years ago he was at the same resort on the same company retreat talking to Rich in the damn foyer over rye whiskey.  
  
“Rich.” Rafe echoes him, trying to sound warm. His grip on the other man’s hand is weak. “How the hell’ve you been?”  
  
Glad to be remembered, Rich laughs, and gesture to the main building that’s in the distance ahead. “Busy.” He breathes. “My youngest just started teething, and –God, you know better than me about all this Canada business.”  
  
Rafe nods, because he does. Or, he should do, but has been sort of waylaid. It would all be running so smoothly six months ago. He doesn’t really have anything to say to Rich, though. He’s out here to avoid business, and thoughts of children, yet here they are, sitting next to him, occupying his every space. At this point, he’d take solitude before hearing about Rich’s youngest, and it’s a terrible ultimatum to draw, because Rich is a fine-looking redhead, if a little suburban.  
  
“That’s a worry for when this respite is over.” Rafe sighs, airily, and gets ready to tread back into the complex and back into his hotel room.  
  
Rich smiles slightly, and nods like he thinks the words hold any real merit beyond evasion. “Well, you’d know about that.” He says, and then shakes his head, “You don’t happen to offer a respite from the kids, do you?”  
  
It’s just a joke –something meaningless to lighten the mood, but for some reason, Rafe sort of gets stuck on it. He looks at Rich and sees everything foreign to him: a lasting marriage, and children he’s happy to come home to and the picket fence in middle-america that looks so flammable that it ignites something that Rafe hasn’t felt since he flew back from Nevada at twenty-one and got fucked in an airplane bathroom by a man thirty years his senior.  
  
Rich wants a respite from his life?  
  
Smiling, Rafe says, “I can think of something.” He tilts his head ever-so-slightly to take in the other man. To leave the suggestion there –just a hint, and never anything more. He watches Rich blink, almost momentarily lost, before he changes the subject.  
  
“I –I heard about what happened to you.” He says, suddenly a little more hoarse. “We all did. Everybody at the office was talking about it.” Trite, or just very sincere, Rich shakes his head. “You must have been--”  
  
Rafe exhales gently. “I’d rather not talk about it.” He says. It’s the truth, too. For some reason, hearing about it being discussed by strangers in a room makes him feel worse, and he has no interest in thinking about any part of the experience. The before, miserable with loneliness, or after –jesus, after.  
  
“You look well.” Rich offers –and Rafe about grins with all the subject of that comment.  
  
Not that he should act so surprised, though. “A testament to the power of good bourbon.” He notes, that faint smile that he knows does his face best justice. They’re approaching the lodge now, and he aligns his feet, thinking about his empty room and his empty bed and thinking about how he hasn’t been fucked since new years. What he wouldn’t give, for just a little--…  
  
Rich surprises him as they both glide towards the resort, lingering by Rafe, when he says, “When I’m not busy with the kids, maybe you ought to introduce me to that good bourbon.”  
  
And Rafe tries not to say hook, line, sinker, as he nods, trying to look relatively indifferent, walking herringbone to where he knows warmth will be. He wants a coffee and a hot bath: hot enough to dissolve into the water and be sustained and held in it for a while.  
Preoccupied, or just proud, he nods, and says, “I’ll be around.”  
  
Rafe makes it inside with the thought of that flight to Nevada plaguing him. He’d just gotten off pills ‘for good’, and his head had been so much clearer during –his hair tugged back, and the stranger hissing ‘who’s your daddy?’ in his damn ear. What he remembers most is the feeling of the man’s wedding ring digging into his scalp as he came for the first time in weeks, and maybe it’s just nostalgia, but when he caught sight of Rich’s nice, plain ring, he couldn’t quite help himself.  
  
The thought of sober sex is enticing enough. Not like that girl at the Greenwich, with her dark, mysterious skin and the way she could emulate Nadine so perfectly when she was turned around and bent over. God, wasn’t that pathetic? Isn’t Rafe over the distance by looking to like Rich, and all he represents?  
  
He thinks to himself, so proudly, that he’s turned a new leaf, and that this trip is proving to be the distraction from Nadine and from Mother’s ghost, until he gets inside, and catches up on his emails.  
  
Among them is another message from Nadine.  
  
‘will you want to know the sex of the baby?’  
  
Rafe is floored by the fact that she has messaged first, both times. That she is asking after him, when she’s the one who put him up here on these icy slopes with her demands that he leave. She’s the one who put the thought of him on ice, too. He should think to punish her, but when he thinks about it for more than a second, he can’t. That image of her, alone in that hotel room, alone, afraid –it’s too awful.  
  
Rafe wishes he could be cruel to her. He wishes. But curse his ailing heart and his criminal mind, he can’t. Too much is at stake, and before he can even help it, his hands are moving to reply.  
  
‘yes.’ He sends, all too soon, all too eager, betraying the careful façade of the million miles between New York and Switzerland that he wanted there to spite her, initially.  
  
He follows it up with ‘when will you find out?’ and hates himself for it all the more. He’s said too much, he’s sure.  
  
He always did make himself too well known.  
  
-  
  
So, he does sleep with Rich, if you must know.  
  
But it’s more of a last resort than a whim when it does happen.  
  
Mother died in the morning, on a Monday, and Rafe had been none the wiser on that frosty morning. But twenty-one years later, he feels it the moment he wakes, and grief takes him to see the date on his phone. There’s no reminder pencilled into his calendar. No commiseration to indulge himself in. God, she might as well have dissolved for all that the world seems to care, because Rafe is the only one with any memory, it seems.  
  
A short message from his assistant is the first thing. Just a ‘sorry for your loss’ that reminds him too much of being pulled out of class so suddenly, of watching the polo players out of a classroom window and hoping –god, how he’d hoped. Summer never came.  
  
Another message –Nadine, this time, and Rafe knows that no matter what she says will feel like a dagger in him from all the miles between them. From the fact that Rafe wants to be near her now more than ever, just to tell somebody. Just to give the memory to somebody else so he doesn’t have to shoulder the burden alone. All her message says is ‘tomorrow’, and Rafe hears himself say that he’s lost though he knows Nadine will be sleeping. That she can’t hear him, and probably doesn’t care.  
  
Rich is the last thing on his mind when he leaves the room behind. It’s the earliest he’s ever been dying for silence in his brain –for a heavier click or a shutdown or something. And isn’t that just a wonderful irony –a perfect imitation of being twenty again, both versions of him crawling away from his grief and into the bottom of a bottle of any bed that will take him.  
  
He drinks because there’s nothing else to do.  
  
-  
  
Inevitably, when it’s dark, Father calls.  
  
And in the dark, without thinking, Rafe answers.  
  
“Yes?” He opens with, blearily, trying to sound unaffected. He’d die to have Nadine see him like this (and he’d die if she never saw him again, too). It’s not convincing –too hoarse to be. Not that it matters. He hears the grave, cutting tone that’s too much like his worm it’s way through the receiver.  
  
Father says, “Hello, Rafael.”  
  
Rafe hates that it clears his head, just a bit. He hates that he feels his cells dive, oxygenless, under water where bean green pours over blue. It’s resentment, he thinks, and it flares worse today of all days. Why would he call? Why would he want to remind Rafe that mother died and he lives and justice can’t even be bought –not for all the money in the world?  
  
Rafe doesn’t have the nerve to hang up. He flinches, and feels himself want to, desperately, but has too much to say. Too many answers to demand. If he resents the man any more quietly it will eat him alive, and then –jesus, then they’ll be the same, won’t they?  
  
So Rafe bites the inside of his cheek and says, “What do you want?” as levelly as he can. Won’t give Father the satisfaction of seeming emotional.  
  
Father hesitates, and Rafe realises he’s sort of held in suspense. Eventually, something gives, and Father says, “To talk.” His voice sounds old. He gets that luxury. The hate in Rafe flares and he feels his hand tense around the lowball glass.  
  
“Well, I’m busy.” He grinds out, trying to remain above it all.  
  
He’s surprised that Father cares or despises him enough to say, “Rafael, for god’s sake--”  
  
“What?” Rafe actually finds it in him to laugh. His mind is thrown back through his childhood, of the bleak, wintry cabin in Bismark, or his summer in Texas where they had been all but locked together in houses and still never found a damn thing to say to eachother. “What is there to talk about?”  
  
They’ve spoken twice in the last seven years. Even before that, Father hasn’t dared say her name or allude to her too strongly and Rafe is daring him to finally bring it up. To be the one who has the guts. But Father choses a different gambit. The one Rafe didn’t even know he should fear.  
  
“I’d hoped you’d grow out of this.” Father says, wearily. “You can’t act like a child and raise one--”  
  
“You’d know, wouldn’t you?” He bites. A mere inch of his resentment makes itself known, and it feels good. “Do you even know what today is?”  
  
Father seems to take a moment, and then speaks as if he’s talking about the weather or his stocks and not a woman he was married to for years. “You know you’ll only get upset if we talk about this, and I don’t--”  
  
“Is it any wonder?!”  
  
“Don’t raise your voice to me, Rafael.” Father says, sternly. “You’re just going to work yourself up, and it’s frankly embarrassing--”  
  
“Feel embarrassed!” Rafe says –shouting in earnest now, his chest tightening in a sharp, corkscrew of a sensation. “But don’t act like she never existed!”  
  
Father takes a breath. God, he’s so measured, always was. Nothing ever seems to get under his skin and Rafe wondered for the longest time if the man was even human.  
  
“And then what, hm?” Father asks him, tightly. “Holding onto her like this isn’t going to bring her back, and if you ever even knew her--”  
  
“I knew--”  
  
“Don’t interrupt me.” Father sounds even tighter in the throat. Aside from anger, this is the closest to feeling Rafe has ever seen him. And he wants to see the man in pain. He wants to see him torn open for all that Rafe had to suffer alone. “Don’t pretend you knew her--”  
  
Rafe seethes. “She was my mother!”  
  
“Yes.” Father snaps, quickly. “And my wife.” He takes half a second to compose himself but doesn’t sound any better for it when he speaks again. “I was married to her for eighteen years, and you saw her a handful of times as a child. Don’t pretend that your idea of Carrie is the slightest bit accurate.”  
  
All that Rafe has of her is what he recalls. The house in El Paso is empty. The horse is shot. All he has left are those handful of times and Father mentions them with such scorn that he feels himself overwrought with hurt, suddenly. That he dares say her name after years of silence, and to say it like that --…  
  
“You were always jealous.” Rafe sniffs, witheringly. “Always were, because Mother and I could tolerate eachother –because she was actually proud of me--”  
  
And then Father does the worst thing he could do –he laughs. And it makes this hideousness in Rafe swell –this hysterical strength he was missing his entire childhood, to speak when the room is off it’s axis and want to twist the knife harder.  
  
But before he can say another word, Father says, “Then why didn’t she ever visit, I wonder?”  
  
Rafe goes to speak, but his tongue snaps back into his jaw. There are answers to that, he knows, but they are all the delusion of a lonely child. They’re all reasons he made up, alone in one of the many rooms in one of the many houses he lived in as a child. “I--…”  
  
Father doesn’t stop there. “Why, if she was so proud, like you say, did she only ever see you once a year?” There’s an undeniable pleasure in the old man’s voice. Father never could wait to watch him tear his life apart. At Rafe’s silence, and his utter loss, Father says, “Come now, Rafael, you must have an answer, given that you knew her so well.”  
  
Rafe doesn’t say anything, though. He can’t. God, he thinks of all the time he wasted scratching at her door. He thinks of once boxing day where her Chevrolet wouldn’t start. And he stayed at hers for a few hours more, giddy with glee, praying that the car would never start again so he could stay forever, and then mere hours afterwards a car arrived to take him away. One that was shiny and black and anonymous.  
  
“You’re just –jealous. And senile.” Rafe coughs out, angrily; even angrier when Father sighs like he’s tired of it all.  
  
“You’re too emotional to see it.” Father says. “You always were.”  
  
“See what?”  
  
Pausing at the threshold of speech, Father almost hesitates. There’s a reluctance in his voice that sounds almost merciful. “This isn’t accomplishing anything.” He says, almost in defeat. Like there was something else he wanted to say but couldn’t quite make the words exist. “Perhaps there isn’t anything to say, after all.”  
  
After that? After all that? Rafe’s mouth falls open in surprise –in a hurt he didn’t know he could have. That Father could withhold this conversation for years, and then dismiss it as quickly as it has started. He has so much more to say, and accuse and demand, but before he can think to say anything else, he can feel the withdrawal he remembers as being so familiar and present. The standover man’s shadow is withdrawing from his bed once more.  
  
“Father--” Rafe hears himself say, in a desperate, pinched voice.  
  
It gives the man pause, amazingly, and in a voice that’s almost gentle with resignation, Father says, “Yes?”  
  
And Rafe holds the breath coming out of him to halt every question he ever wanted to ask, childlike and obsolete as they are now: _why didn’t she love me? Why didn’t you? Did we look to similar, Mother and I? Did my pulse sound too much like her name?_  
  
Or, even still: _how do I stop myself from seeing your face in my mirror? How do I live with a child I don’t want without doing to it what you did to me?_  
  
But instead of saying any of that, Rafe swallows hard, and says, “Don’t call again.”  
  
And he finds it in him to hang up.  
  
Rafe doesn’t drink any more that night. It won’t help. The past has already been dredged up and he feels bled and powerless and neutered. So he does go outside to get some air, down through the foyer and into the bracing, awful night. Just to be alone properly. Just to be distracted by the biting frost.  
  
In the dark, the snow looks almost lilac and Rafe hates himself for wondering if Nadine would have liked it here. It makes no difference now. None of it does. He shivers and distracts himself with the thought of her. With the thought of her in New York, and how they could have at least been alone, together, if only Rafe could face her as she is. If only he could face her from this distance, leaving his phone in his hotel room behind a locked door so that he doesn’t have to face the reality of a child on this night of all nights.  
  
Out of the underbrush, about fifteen feet away, he spots movement in his periphery, and squints at a small, vague shape until it comes into focus as a mountain hare. Perhaps it’s even the same one, and Rafe notes the pathetic irony that it seems to appear whenever he thinks around Mother’s black hole in his memory. The sight of it comes clearer as the thing hops towards him, stopping short halfway, leaving them both in an inertia.  
  
The door behind him opens and the sound of the place spills out ruining the perfect tranquillity as a smoker steps out. Rafe turns to look, ad when he turns back around, the hare is gone.  As if it were never even there to begin with.  
  
Bereft, again, Rafe turns to go inside and sees Rich through a frosted window-pane. There’s a woman next to him, holding an infant, and Rafe watches her depart with a kiss, chaste but loving. He watches it as he is, alone in these vile peaks, with Nadine far from him and Mother cooling and Father now a distant, retreating shadow. He feels he has nothing at all in the world left and there Rich is, with it all.  
  
What else is there to do? Rafe sees their hallmark moment and wants to steal it.  
  
(Later, when Rich is on his back, guilt edging into his features as he cums hard into Rafe, overstimulated and unable to say no, Rafe feels himself smile in the dark.  
  
It’s a last resort when it happens, but God –it’s worth it.)


End file.
